World War II: Les héros de l'ombre

With seasoned war film veterans this film really disappoints. Mainly because of the 1990's CGI effects and not being realistic.

They use several clichés; unlimited ammo, inaccurate spraying of bullets when they shoot they're machine pistols, guys falling BEFORE the shot hits, and they fall several meters when they get shot, the Russians and the Germans speaks perfectly good English.

I don't know how much Jürgen Prochnow got to play a part in this movie, judging by his acting, not enough...

The only good thing is that that you get to see Vinnie being Vinne and beats up several guys on his own, which would be expected.

A lot of not great acting in this movie..

On viewing this film I was excited by the cast. As a fan of both Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers seeing cast members from both made me giddy with anticipation on watching the film.

All in all the film story is quite good - I liked it. The acting is fine on most parts as you would expect from the cast - lets face it, several of the cast crew are more than qualified to fulfil their roles.

I cannot believe the annoyance allowed to be taken over by this film by the dull and out of place sound effects and music - music being my main gripe. What on earth was the sound production crew doing? If you watch any good war film dating back to the 40's the music is not the bug of any film, until I saw this. There was absolutely no need for the music over the scenes, it made the film feel cheap (OK it is low budget) where no music would had made it feel realistic. The sounds of tank movements, back ground noise, shots, explosions would have made this film feel 200 times better rather than the music. Why? The sound effects ruin the picture and atmosphere.

In general, the effects on video are OK. If there was a way to improve this picture just leave the voices in, delete pretty much all music and replace with sound effects. Score would then be an 8/10 (for a low budget film).

I am at a loss why the hell the director commissioned the music.

This could probably be sorted with someone with skill re-recording the sound. It takes away "the edge".

I like WW2 movies. It's not that I expected a lot from this one. Overall it let me down. I have enjoyed some of the main actors in other movies. The premise was solid. But the overall feel of the movie was it was trying too hard. This is a B movie at best. I watched the entire movie and was mildly entertained. Set your expectations low. It seems that any "new" war movie is either a blockbuster or a sub-par offering. My personal rating system is fairly simple. If I watch the movie in it's entirely it automatically gets a 5, because it did what it was supposed to do. It entertained me. Company of Heroes will go on my shelf and probably never be watched again. It must of been a straight to DVD release. http://thelemondreport.blogspot.ca/

Well, yes, they do, apparently. In the old days war movies used to be full of inaccuracy's, have stupid plots, really stupid action sequences and the occasional love story. They were enjoyable for what they were - a piece of entertainment but without the seriousness to stop you enjoying s good old fashioned shoot-em-up war flick. Then came movies like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down to spoil the lot. All this realism, slight adherence to facts and decent story lines really wrecked the genre. So thanks be to God there is still someone out there who doesn't give a f**k about all of that and can still make the same pile of do-do we got in the 1960's. Guns that can shoot endless rounds of ammo, bazooka's which can blow up tanks, tanks that look like nothing you are ever likely to find in any book about tanks, German's who can line up as if on parade to get shot, prisoners who are well fed, camps which look like building sites, etc. etc. etc. This is not the worst war movie I have ever seen but it was close. What the f**k Tom Sizemore and Jurgen Pronchnow were doing in it only their pay check knows. And, yes, there is a nude scene for no apparent reason. Like the rest of the movie you ask yourself WHY??????

From incorrect uniforms to incorrect weapons to incorrect armored vehicles to 4 engine bombers making a bombing run from what appeared to be about 300 feet this movie was constantly throwing so much comic book fiction stuff in your face it was impossible to follow the plot.

It also felt like a video game as a large squad of about 8 guys kill off hundreds of German troops. It was almost as bad as showing the little pac man life icons and then subtracting them in scene after scene as yet again the character implausibly survives to kill dozens more.

Too bad this movie could have been so much better just by someone paying attention.

Rating 3 stars