Opération Matchbox

I've just seen "The Last Drop". Honestly, I had to watch it twice to see the whole film, for it failed to pull me in like other wartime-movies usually do. Having seen so many excellent wartime-movies, my expectations were at the beginning fairly high. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed for "The Last Drop" is no match for great movies such as "The Great Raid" or "Saving Private Ryan". The film lacks tension and suspense, as it shifts from one scene to another, as well as professional acting to carry out a good quality performance. I agree with the rest of you who claim the accents being indescribable and improper for everyone seems to speak with his own variety of British accent. That's just weird. To my opinion, the whole production of the movie is bad as the storyline loses thread and a viewer is thus left confused and rather disturb. On the other hand, putting in real footage makes the film a little bit more plausible and somehow makes up for the weak script reflected in excruciatingly poor dialogue. There is some ribald sense of humor to spice things up, yet not enough to bring characters into life. All in all, the scriptwriter and the producer of the film provide a viewer with low budget special effects, bad scenery and a sort of a mish-mash of old (jazz) and modern (rock!! :S ) soundtrack music. So, if you really do want to watch a wartime-movie, try to avoid this one and pick the miniseries "Band Of brothers" or one of the above mentioned movies instead.

This exciting warlike movie is plenty of action,suspense and shot during WWII in the important campaign called Market Garden , the largest airborne invasion though failed . In a last attempt to end the war,Winston Churchill conceives an extraordinary plan , 35000 soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines in the occupied Holland by the Germans . It was a flop by the allies to finish the war quickly by securing three bridges allowing access over the Rhine towards Germany, being the most important battle ,¨the bridge of Arnhem¨ (events filmed in ¨A bridge too far¨as well by Richard Attemborough). This historic recounting was an unsuccessful operation by British and Us forces to cross the Meuse,Waal and Neder-Rijn rivers in Holland Sept 1944 . British airborne forces were to capture vital bridges at Arnhem to open the way for an armoured thrust from the south . When the airborne operation failed, the armoured force was unable to reach Arnhem and the whole operation collapsed . But into British troops there are a misfits group,one small unit , codename ¨the matchbox¨ (Billy Zane, Sean Petwee, Tommy Flannagan, Nick Moran, Neal Jackson, among others) led on a daring mission . They must discover a rousing treasure formed by artist objects . Meanwhile , another band of German crooks formed by three renegade soldiers (Karl Roden, Alexander Skarsgard, Laurence Fox) has their own agenda to steal a fortune in gold from behind enemy lines . Besides , a American sergeant (Michael Madsen) has his mean purports as well.

The picture is an explosive combination of warlike feats , adventures and suspense . The plot is partially similar to ¨Kelly's heroes¨ , as also different soldiers find themselves separated from the Allied invasion who want to claim a loot . This stirring film contains an excellent plethora of players as Billy Zane (Titanic, Cleopatra, Total calm) , Michael Madsen (Kill Bill I, II, Sin city) , Karl Roden (Fifteen minutes , BladeII, The myth of Bourne) and Laurence Fox (The Hole) , among others . The motion picture was regularly directed by Colin Teague . Rating : Average although entertaining.

I saw the last drop yesterday, and within a few minutes knew that i would be disappointed. The acting, on the whole was sub-standard, as was the script. And don't get me started on the score...whoever thought putting 80's style guitar rock music in the background during one scene should really be looking for another job.

The action, to be fair, had it's moments. There's a nice shootout near the beginning, and whilst there's no real 'gore' as such, the level of violent realism is fairly gritty.

I suppose the crux of my dislike for this movie is based around that fact that it seems to present ww2 in a light-hearted way. There's too many attempts at one-liner humour which just don't come off, or might be better suited to a romantic comedy. World War Two was many things. Horrific, heroic, gruelling, disgusting, wasteful...but funny it most certainly was not.

4/10

This could have been a good film if only people had taken it's production a bit more seriously. We see several clips of a Horsa Glider being towed over to Holland. On take off it is towed by a 4 engine Short Stirling, then its being towed by a twin engined DC3 Dakota (C47). As they cross the Dutch coast it is being towed by a Handley Page Halifax!

The CGI is poor compared with other recent films, and continuity is a joke. The glider in the air has RAF roundels which on the ground become French! The glider in the air has RAF roundels which on the ground become French! How can so much money be spent on films only to have such stupid mistakes? It doesn't stop there what with a very modern looking truck being used in one sequence and later a very poorly disguised Antonov AN-2 trying to look like a JU52 on floats. The countryside and settings look very little like Holland...its almost an insult to our intelligence and sad when you realise that it wouldn't have taken a great deal to get it right.

Lastly, is it meant as a gritty heist movie, a gritty war drama or a bit of a romp? I got the feeling that the makers of this film changed their mind on a daily basis. If they had only stuck to their original idea I might have found it more believable.

Let me start by saying I picked this movie up for $3 at a used book store. And frankly, I do not regret it. There is an interesting quality about this movie that leaves me satisfied with the movie experience. It starts with expectations. When your marquee actors are Billy Zane and Michael Madsen, no matter how high budget the DVD case would like you to believe it is, you know going in that it is a B-Movie. Kind of like anything with C. Thomas Howell in it. So if you go in expecting a Saving Private Ryan, that is your oversight, not the makers of this film. Clearly in the aerial shots and crash scene at the beginning, one gets a good idea as to the "budget". There is nothing quality about this movie except maybe the true events surrounding the plot. I'm a fan of art and art history and WWII provides numerous interesting stories about art theft and art rescue. However, whereas the quality of the movie stinks, it's at least interesting. Low-B actors, recognizable character actors from bigger movies (see Tommy Flanagan in Braveheart), bad accents, poor dialogue, and to make matters worse the movie can't decide what it is going to be. Initially it starts out as a serious war movie and by the end of the movie, it had tried to become a Guy Ritchie film. Somewhere in the middle as the Germans steal a truck, hard rock music starts playing and the whole tone of the movie changes. Regardless of how bad this movie is, it is still an enjoyable time waster just to immerse yourself in bad movie-making.