Allies

This is my first review, and I was inspired to submit it, in part, by how appalling this film is....and by other reviews giving it a favourable notice and possibly luring people into wasting a couple of hours of their lives watching what is, essentially no more than an animated teenagers comic.... such as the Commando magazines I used to colour in back in the day. The acting and direction are laugh-out- loud bad and the plot, such as it is, ludicrous. It contains all the clichés (All American hero stages a remarkable recovery from near fatal infection, comedy German accents and heroic French peasant popping up the stairs to save the day, trite dedication at the end credits) and corny dialogue. The budget battle scenes look like they were staged by the local historical re-enactment society clumped on the village green on a Sunday afternoon. This film has no redeeming features and I'd be surprised if we see any of the actors portraying the British officers at headquarters ever again. So perhaps, after all, Allies has served a purpose. Honestly, life is short. There are hundreds of better things to do with your time.

I will prefix this review by stating that I have no personal connection to the film at all. I am history buff and like to support British indy films, so that is why I bought it.

About every three months or so as if by weird synchronicity a World War 2 movie on DVD you have never heard of will magically appear on the shelves of your local Tescoe's or Sainsbury's - Often their starring people you have also never heard of or occasionally one vaguely familiar name from television somewhere. Sometimes their films from Russia, Norway, Poland Or Denmark and even the biggest budget of those can often disappoint (See my review for Stalingrad) While others like Citeron and Flame are superb pieces of work - Other times their extremely low budget and appear to have been made at the behest of all the worst ideas possible (See Rhineland) Others are well crafted little films that do their best with extremely limited resources - The best of these so far has been the Saints and Soldiers series (I have the third one awaiting my viewing pleasure next door) Frequently these films have rather glossy artwork covers, invariably with a picture of a tank that almost never appears in the actual movie and a visual display that suggests far more action and adventure than the film goes on to deliver. Allies does feature an actual tank, but its not on the cover of the DVD - As luck would have it the makers of Allies have realised that good casting and decent dialogue rather than a tank on the cover, for a better film do make!

Allies is an earnest attempt at creating a boy's own War Movie old school style and while they don't quite have the budget to pull it off entirely they certain have a dam good try.

Its the summer of 1944, The Normandy Campaign is over and the Allies are steaming into France and heading to the Dutch, Belgian and German borders. The Germans are preparing their defences and getting ready to fall behind The West Wall, so our heroes led by Captain Gabriel Jackson (Julian Ovendon from Downton Abbey) are to parachute in and attack a small convoy led by an SS commander who is touring the local defences and has maps of their dispositions. But the enemy seems to know their coming - could their be a traitor in their midst?

Such is the rather simple set up of ALLIES - Okay so its not a plot on par with 'Where Eagles Dare' though there were moments when radio calls were being made which led myself and my friends to call out 'Broadsword calling Danny Boy! The traitor in the midst seems rather obvious from the word go due to the over acting of the gentleman concerned, but on the whole this is a very made movie. Good Production Design and Photography stand out here and the acting from some of the members of the squad is especially good - special mentions to Matt Willis, Chris Reily, Leon Vickers and Edmund Kingsley all of whom make their mark, the latter almost with no dialogue at all. The film isn't perfect by any means - While care is taken in the earlier scenes to establish these characters it seems a shame that several of them die 45 minutes into the movie (Two of the best actors among them) and the Germans continually turning up gets repetitive after a while offering little in the way of surprises. A toe amputation scene felt added for gory effect but on the whole this is a well made, well intentioned film with German actor for hire Eric Redman commanding the Wehrmacht ranks along with every re- inactor they could get giving it a bigger than its actual budget feel. Three of us watched it last night and we can be quite critical, especially of war movies, but we all enjoyed it and while the plot and aspects of the story could have been stronger and the summary at the end of the film really only adds a historical context which is tenuous at best to the story that preceded it, this is well worth seeing and something of which all who were involved in it can be proud of.

"Allies" is an exciting, action-packed war movie that can be very enjoyable if you can get over the fact that it is rather ludicrous and predictable. If every Allied soldier killed that many Germans, the war would have been over in six months. And one could only wish that Allied tanks would have shown up in such a timely manner. It rather reminded me of WWII shows that used to appear on American TV, except that some of them (especially "Combat!") were superior, dramatically speaking. But who doesn't like a slam-bang story of commando action, combat, betrayal, and even a little romance? Not a great war movie by any means, but not a bad film if you are willing to suspend a rather large portion of disbelief.

I find myself being burned quite frequently these days by the review scores on IMDb. I guess it is a testament to the sites popularity that efforts are obviously made these days to drive up scores.

Personally when I see an above average score I double check on rotten tomatoes, where Allies doesn't even have a score - IE it's gone completely unnoticed into the world.

Anyhoo, I won't waste your time with the plot which has been covered in other reviews. Nor will I dwell on the diabolical script / camera work etc.

I'm a WW2 buff so gave this a punt, but much as I love the genre I do require a bit of realism from battle scenes and I got none of that here.

For example, British para's - I was one - do NOT wear red berets in combat (for reasons I'd hope would be obvious). The soldiers in the film did, whilst they stood around in bunched groups trading pot shots with the Germans. The para who poked his up over the grass verge to take a quick peek wearing what was effectively a red lantern on his head deserved what happened, sniped of all things by a machine gunner.

Whilst still under fire squaddies do not take a break to run back to a fallen comrade and squat by him - in the open - to bemoan the tragedies of war.

Give this one a miss.

In the later half of 1944. A four man team of British Commandos are seconded for a secret snatch 'n' grab mission to recover detailed military maps being held by the Germans. Tagging alongside the team is American Captain Jackson (played by Julian Ovenden).

And that my friends and Allies is all the story I shall deliver at this point. I discovered the storyline firsthand, and I 100% recommend you also do the same.

Allies is Directed by Dominic Burns, a filmmaker whose career I have followed pretty closely for the past few years. One thing I love about the films that Dominic Burns gets involved in is that they are all different. From the horror film 'Cut', to the comedy film 'How To Stop Being A Loser' through the science fiction film 'UFO' (also known as Alien Uprising) , and including the thriller films Airborne ,

Dominic never seems to tackle the same genre twice and I can't help wondering if there is a musical or an animated film on the horizon at some point waiting to appear on his filmography.

Part way through the viewing of the film, I realised that whilst I have always figured Dominic tackles different genres each and every time. I realised that they all had one thing in common. People..If you strip back the covers on all the films Dominic has done to the bare minimum, you'll see that his films are about people, and the relationships they have with each other.

For all the fantastic set pieces (and they are most certainly fantastic) in Allies, the gunbattles, the planes and explosions. For me the heart of Allies is just that. Allies. Its about the comoradery , that band of brothers feeling that a lot of military films convey, But a lot don't. Allies certainly does give you that feeling of one man willing to take a bullet for the man next to him.

So whilst you might think you have seen all that the 'men on a mission' films can offer. You really haven't. Allies is fantastic in so many ways. It is beautiful to look at, Praise needs to be given to both the director and also his camera crew. Its outstanding and epic to watch and hear as the story unfolds from start fo finish. As much as I love the work of Dominic Burns. If you sit down and watch each of his films in the order they were released. You'll see the quality of the films ramp up with each new project. That my friends is a filmmaker who knows what he is doing but still learning more and more with each new film. But more than the learning new things, he is using those new lessons to make his next film better than the last (and I love the last film) and surround himself with the best team out there (such as Jake 'Doghouse' West, James 'Tower Block' Nunn, Poppy Lloyd -the highest regarded casting agent out there) and many more)

It would be so easy to write a review (although is it a review if I am not delving into too many plot details) where I go through a list of the things I loved about it Acting:CHECK, Directing:CHECK, Editing:CHECK and so on. Thats the easy way out.

Kudos do go to all the cast though, what a wonderful mix of actors (and actresses) from very different styles of projects. Whether its Leon Vickers (Doctor Who), Edmund Kingsley (The Borgias, and the up and coming Artificial Horizon), Chris Reilly (Game Of Thrones, Everest) or Matt Willis (McBusted) who make up the core group of the cast as the Allies themselves (Matt Willis is wonderful as sniper Billy) The whole cast are excellent actually. Upon looking at the filmographies of the cast. I was stunned to learn that Chris Reillys first credit was in 2010. The guy has the acting chops that display a lifetime of excellence and I cant wait to follow this guys career from project to project as well as the other cast members, some of whos work I was familiary with before Allies, some I wasn't.

But lets get back to the film. In fact lets get back to the sound. My god, whoever did the sound mix on Allies. Thank you, thank you and thank you. I haven't seen a film with this good a soundmix for a long time. From the ambient noise of forests, to the tank blasting craziness of war accompanied by one of the most beautiful film scores I have heard this year.(the score is composed and conducted by Phillippe Jakko), Allies is the sort of film that makes you want to rush out and get a huge soundbar or a 7.1 surround system or whatever number they are up to now. Allies is the sort of film that begs to be watched on a huge screen with the most perfect sound set up) I aim to get one of those soon and Allies will be a first watch on it.With the fact that I have seen over 250 films this year. One thing is written in stone. Dominic Burns has created yet another film thats blown my socks (and ears) off.

Thank you, thank you oh and thank you to all the cast and crew who put sweat and perhaps tears into this film. For me as a film fan. You hard work has been worth it. Now lets get others watching the film.