If you are an American movie producer, director or scriptwriter, and you want to put a believable war story on film, you should observe a few ground rules: 1.) Find a reputable war story, that interest's and intrigues you.
Do not make a story up, or select events and clump them together,
if they are too remotely related.
2.) Have a few Veterans or Survivors consulted and included in the
extras of the DVD, from all sides. Hurry up, they will not be
around forever.
3.) Read the History part, try to be as authentic as possible.
4.) Read about soldiers from the other side, try to get their characters
and culture right.
The Russians in this film look like morons and goons, the director
should have watched some Russian war flicks like 'ZVESDA', 'SVOY'
or 'KONVOY PQ-17', to get the feeling.
5.) Have military advisers around, to make sense out of the action
scenes. At least this movie had some original vehicles like the
Hetzer. But they seemed to be lost on the Battlefield.
6.) Get actors, that act like soldiers act in wars.
Do not make the mistake of assigning pretty actors to one side,
and the most ugly ones to the other.
Do not dehumanize any side. Criticize them by their deeds, do not
paint them as subhumans.
7.) Do not make a war movie, that subjects to your ideology.
This one felt like a typical propaganda movie.
A very naive and born out of prejudiced klishe'.
8.) A good musical score, this was the only part in the movie, that was
done good.
