Quand les clairons se taisent

When Trumpets Fade is a great movie, with excellent action sequences, fine acting and a sound storyline. It's better than Platoon, and I'd put it up there with 84 Charlie Mopic, except that it deals with infantry warfare during WWII. It came out after a series of real to life WWII movies, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, but is made on a smaller budget and apart from Ryan's opening scene, it is a better movie. The cast consists of thoroughly unknown but very skilled actors, and the movie gives you a feel of what it must have been like to be on the front line in the Huertgen Forrest in Germany, late 1944. The Hungarian location adds realism as well.

The story basically revolves around the single minded efforts of private (then sergeant, then lieutenant) Manning (Ron Eldard) to stay alive and out of the meatgrinder that is conventional warfare, no matter what, even though ironically, the fact that he survives means that he has to put up for ever more dangerous tasks because he's the only one near who has any close-up experience.

I'll add that the videostore I go to allows you to rent 5 movies for the price of 3, and keep them for a full week. Every day after watching another movie, I couldn't help but re-watch "When Trumpets Fade", and every time I found something new and something more made sense to me.

This is one outstanding movie, very well produced and if you like war movies from the grunt's point of view, don't miss it.

When Trumpets Fade is a very decent war movie, but the fight scenes seem a tad bit fake. They are fighting a battle in Hurtgen Forest at the border of Belgium that seems to be impossible to win, and the platoon attempts many pushes against the German line with no avail. The main obstacle for the US troops is the tanks and flak 88 guns that their artillery cant take out. The newly appointed Sergeant Manning is given a squad of 4 men and ordered to go and take out the flak guns across from the bridge. The movie shows the difficulties and mental stress that comes with leading in war, and how sometimes you have to go to drastic measures to maintain control of the situation. This film is a great tribute to the remembrance of a very important battle that most people don't know about. I recommend it to everyone and you should all learn to love SANDERSON!!!

Due to the fact that the two films came out close together, it is tempting to compare When Trumpets Fade to Saving Private Ryan. This would be a mistake. Unlike Private Ryan, Trumpets is not an epic set to a background of a crucial point in history, like D-Day, nor are the central characters members of an elite unit who are given a "heroic" assignment. Instead, the main character, Manning (Eldard), starts off as a private reluctant to risk his life, but who finds himself promoted and burdened with increasing responsibilities he does not want as his unit suffers horrendous attrition attempting to fight its way into Germany in late 1944. Manning's dilemma both contrasts and parallels that of his company commander, Captain Pritchett (Donovan), who has to balance achieving the objectives he has been assigned and keeping as many of his men alive as he can, and succeeding at neither. The greatest contrast with Private Ryan, however, comes in the form of the replacement troops, all green recruits with no combat experience - a far cry from Captain Miller's seasoned Rangers. Rounding it off is Dwight Yoakam as the nameless battalion commander who is unapologetic about driving his men to the slaughter, but whose face betrays the fact that, as with Captain Pritchett, their deaths weigh heavily upon him. When Trumpets Fade successfully showcases combat at its most gruesome and frustrating as Captain Pritchett's company batters itself to pieces against its target with nothing to show for the effort and bravery of the men except an ever-increasing pile of American corpses. But we get two good looks at the face of a German squad leader, portrayed by Frank-Michael Köbe, and in it we can see the despondency of a man who knows that he is fighting only to postpone the inevitable defeat of his country. A gritty, realistic, and depressing, but nonetheless excellent film.

WHEN TRUMPETS FADE is one of the very best recent WWII films. It doesn't have anywhere near the scope of something like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, but it captures what it was like to fight as a typical "grunt" in Europe during the winter of '44-'45--and what it's like to fight in a war anywhere--about as well as any movie can. Appropriately enough, its setting is the bloody, intense Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the longest single engagement in the history of the United States Army and one that, ironically, many of the history books largely ignore. Many experts now believe that this battle should have been avoided altogether.

Ron Eldard gives a really fine performance as "Manning," a reluctant draftee-type who's "not about to take a bullet for anyone." One of the best aspects of this film is the way it shows the psychology--and irony--of how Manning's higher-ups use him via a combination of threats, flattery, and promotions just to take one small strategic spot during the battle. Just about everyone else in the film--American or German, I don't believe that there are any non-military characters --gives a commendably believable performance, but special mention goes to Zak Orth, who plays a typical replacement who, young, green, and unsoldierly though he may seem, turns out to be a fine soldier, and Martin Donovan as Captain Pritchett, a typically ruthless, uncaring commander to the men in his company but a bit of a Private Manning himself to his superior officers.

Like most of today's war films, WHEN TRUMPETS FADE is gory, disturbing, and, by necessity (since it's about an unpopular and rather ineffectual battle), somewhat depressing. Still, the dialogue, battle footage, and various other aspects are nothing if not realistic. WHEN TRUMPETS FADE captures the cynicism of war-in-general incredibly well.

Surprised to find criticism here. This is a film for grown ups. Its about infantrymen, you know, the bulk of the troops in contact with the enemy. Watching other films you might be tempted to think that only Paratroopers and Rangers did any fighting, being made up of highly motivated men with a higher purpose on heroic missions. I note criticism that the cynical nonconformist type should not appear until Vietnam films. I would suggest that a very high proportion of those in combat in WWII also didn't want to be there - my father landed on Sword beach on D-Day and certainly would rather have been somewhere else. We can still respect their sacrifice even though they only wanted to survive, because we are grown up. We don't need a film packed full of sentimentality, directors manipulation and musical cues telling us what emotions to feel... and as to complaining about the plot, how do you defend the absolutely contrived plot of that other film I haven't named (but you can guess which one I mean). See this film. Rant over.