Red Rose of Normandy

Like a previous reviewer, this is also the first time for me to write a movie review. When I read the other reviews, I had to laugh because they both expressed my same sentiments about this unbelievably bad war movie. In the scene where the landing crafts come ashore, the ocean behind them is completely "empty"! No supply ships - no Navy cruisers or destroyers firing at the German strongholds (bunkers, etc.) during the landing or any of the other approximately 5000 (total) vessels that history tells us were present on D-Day. It's clear to me now: a low budget film and the Normandy invasion don't go together lest it becomes an unintended comedy and a possible insult to the men that died on those beaches 68 years ago!

I am a teenager who loves historical, war and action based movies. I saw the cover and rented it and watched this movie. Worst dollar I have ever spent, I thought I have seen the worse movies before I saw this, I stand corrected, This movie not only has the obvious features of low budget independent film, but the story line seems like it was written by a child. During the first scene when they talk, it was obvious from their "great" acting skills that this movie was going to suck, but i never thought it was as bad as it actually was. I do admit the weapons in the movie are quite spot on, just their firing effects draw your attention from the nice weapons to terrible effects. I found this movie to be more of a comedy then a action movie, because i couldn't stop laughing at this movie, if you are looking for a movie to watch to learn about WWII then this movie shouldn't be your first, second or even last stop. If you are looking to laugh at a film trying to be serious with terrible acting, directing, camera shots, war scenes and more, this movie is worth the dollar you could get it for at the Red Box.

The jacket is by far the most interesting part of this movie and it isn't the worst movie of all time it certainly is in contention. At first I thought it might be a foreign film with dubbed in subtitles. Then I thought it was, perhaps, a Russian propaganda movie made to glorify the Russian military. My final conclusion, just before it was ejected from the DVD tray was that it was a high school movie class's final project. But even then it would have to improve. The director,producer and all the actors should be sued for malpractice! The acting is beyond stiff. The photography is dreadful with out of focus scenes and the script was awful. All in all it is a stinker and there's nothing good to be said about it.

Let's see...

Atrocious acting, overweight soldiers, pristine uniforms, non-period costume elements, ultra-low budget effects... It must be a re-enactor film!

Full disclosure: I am not criticizing re-enactors in this review. I am, in fact, a World War II re-enactor and historian myself. That's why I recognize this film for what it is.

It would be much too time-consuming to point out all of the gross errors in this film, but my favorite part is when Klaudia, a German nurse, jumps into the machine gun pit and starts shooting at the Americans with an MG-42. Here are just a few of the many, many other things that were wrong with the script:

> Many scenes take place in a large, multi-story, walled prison facility near Omaha Beach. No such place existed in 1944, and still doesn't.

> Civilian police (Gestapo) have authority over the military.

> A private in the 29th Infantry Division on Omaha Beach has the helmet insignia of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division on his helmet

> The private mentioned above addresses his sergeant as "Sir".

> The sergeant then says, "We gotta get off this beach, our Airborne is taking a hell of a pounding!" How does he know what the Airborne is doing? Why is he concerned about the Airborne instead of his objective? The Airborne troops are all over Normandy, too far inland for him to assist them with anything!

I would love to have enough money to make a ridiculously unrealistic film and run around in my WWII-era uniform. It looks like it was a lot of fun for the re-enactors and vehicle collectors in the cast, and the whole thing was clearly done in only one take, so no one would have been waiting around between takes and getting bored. I also like how they threw in a token Brit to be politically correct, but give no explanation as to why he's there.

It's interesting that the female lead (Klaudia Schiller, portrayed by Claudia Crawford) was left out of the credits. I know her acting was terrible, but so was the acting of everyone else in the film, and they credited all of them. At least her character's name was the same as her real first name so she wouldn't get confused when she was being addressed in the film. I wonder if they just licked her lips and stuck her to a wall when she wasn't needed for a scene.

I rarely do reviews, since I don't like to harm a movie, as generally there is something, somewhere that makes it have at least some minuscule quality to it, but I can honestly say that I have found a movie that has none. Nothing. Nunca. Niet. Zero. I am sure they had a small budget, but at what point do you need to say, "Hey. We have no money. Maybe we should re-evaluate even doing a movie, rather than risk turning out a piece of junk, and damaging our reputation so severely, that no one will ever give us any funding to ever do this again."?

Oh, wait a minute. There was a V W beetle painted in camouflage, and I like V W beetles. There. Now I feel justified in giving it a "one".