The Second Front

Rented this one (thank God!). Right from the start I could tell I was in for an extremely dull picture. The opening narration must have used the word It about 10 times. They were so close to IT. IT was almost solved. He had the formula needed to solve IT. etc... Then you see a bunch of fat guys dressed up in trench-coats. Nobody cares that the whole set is consisting of spies obviously up to no good. Consistency is lacking in the film as the main character is wounded and later on in the film there isn't a mark on him where he was shot before. The mouth/sounds do not match up 80% of the time. The aircraft used in the film (a Beriev Be-12 Chaika 'Mail') wasn't even developed during the movies time set (1942) it was created in the 1960's (yet they used it during this film set in 1942? Who did research on this pic?) The plot is confusing and extremely poor in construction. Extremely low budget film. One has to wonder why people even bother wasting money for such disgusting wastes of film, money, time and effort (even though this film had about 0 effort expended on it). The acting is poor and the plane shots are positively dreadful. DO NOT BUY! DO NOT RENT!

What a disappointment of a movie. I love a good war movie because of the valor, the bravery, the action, the love of country and dedication to a cause greater than one's self. Unfortunately, this movie was more like a watching military version of "The Great Race" where people are scurrying all over the world for uncertain reasons and competing in disjointed activities. The general story line has potential, but frankly, a group of ten-year old boys playing Army in the backyard could have come up with a more realistic plot and better consistency across scenes.

Another contributor to this board mentioned the lack of special effects, like outtakes or deleted scenes. The absence of those is a blessing to the viewer, in my mind. The scenes that made it to the movie were so tepid and predictable that I can't imagine what those on the cutting room floor must be like.

Save your time and your money. Watch "Band of Brothers", "Saving Private Ryan", or any number of other war movies that employ props and dialog consistent the era, credible story lines, and plots that don't require the viewer to keep telling themselves that the movie will surely be getting better any minute now.

I am a woman who appreciates war movies. Good war movies, that is. What I consider to be well-made war movie traits are an adherence to fact, correct use of language (e.g., Italian characters speaking in Italian and, bonus points, acted by Italians), a compelling story, and lack of jingoism. Oh yes, and NO "LOVE TRIANGLES" (note to movie makers: not all women need romantic subplots to watch a war movie. I mean, really, a "love triangle?" Millions of people were being slaughtered. Doesn't that fact make any stupid "love triangles" utterly irrelevant? If you really want to attract women, perhaps have war movies that focus on women who made a difference.)

A few war movies that I've appreciated that utilize some or all of these traits are "The Longest Day" (my entrance into war movies), "Band of Brothers," "The Tuskegee Airmen," "Kelly's Heroes" (Donald Sutherland. Priceless.), "Life is Beautiful," and "Breaker Morant." This movie, unfortunately, did not have any of these traits, save for the use of native language. Utterly pointless story and annoying characters. I can even make an argument for blatant false advertising - if you watched the movie, did you see the tanks or spitfires that are depicted on the DVD cover? Yeah, me neither. Although the sea plane was cool....

Save your time. Save your money. There are countless other movies that are much more deserving. "Kagemusha," for example....

This movie must be the culmination of every bad WWII movie ever made. It is incredibly inaccurate, unrealistic, and stupid. I practically like the stereotypical German with the monocle, the Russian spy with short, tightly pulled back hair and the American with the tiny mustache and bad haircut. Towards the end of the movie, the American character is holding a Kar 98, in the next scene it changes to a shotgun which he cocks, and then reverts back to a Kar 98. Hilarious. I think any attempt to justify the existence of this movie should be met with rancid tomatoes and other rotten produce. After viewing this movie I feel my IQ has substantially dropped. Please, please, please do not rent, buy, or borrow from a friend (although I question what sort of friend what allow you to view such garbage) this movie. It will be the greatest waste of your time since The Replacement Killers.

"The Second Front" is a Russian-made film about a 1942 attempt by the Nazis to kidnap a German scientist who had fled to England. That part of the plot is just slightly far-fetched, and could have been the fodder for a decent wartime thriller. But in this case, the scientist happens to be Jewish. Germany had many top scientists at work in the war effort, inventing new weapons, etc. And, knowing the vile hatred within the Nazi party of the Jewish people, the idea that they would want to kidnap a Jewish scientist to help them is unbelievable. To the mind of a Nazi, that would be admitting inferiority to a Jew. A more plausible plot might have been one to try to assassinate the Jewish scientist.

So, the preposterous theme of the plot aside, this still might have been a decent thriller of sorts. An interesting thing that I noticed was the unusual aircraft used as the German Red Cross plane. And, the plot of American and Soviet efforts to either kidnap or kill the scientist was a little interesting. This seems to be a post-Soviet era project by Russians to give one example of some coordination and cooperation among the Allied forces in WW II. The Soviet Union was among the Allies fighting Nazi Germany, but the war was barely over when it enclosed most of eastern Europe behind its iron curtain.

As for the acting, at best it is so-so, but there are many instances when it's either wooden or stagy. The production is also quite rudimentary with total breaks between scenes. This is an example on film when research was lacking or ignored about some simple things. For instance, the Russian commando's weapons. They never seem to run out of ammo, and we don't see them carrying any extra. Scenes show Veklich alone (Aleksey Serebryakov) firing what must be about 100 rounds from something like a Tommy gun. Then there is the huge number of German soldiers who supposedly flew on the Red Cross plane. Nowhere before the final battle scene is there any inkling of so many German soldiers. And, even though the inside of the plane looked much larger than it did from the outside, it didn't look like it could hold that many soldiers with their equipment.

This is a weak action thriller of WW II.