The Last Witness

This movie isn't from the point of view of the Polish victims of Stalin's massacre. It's about the coverup by the Soviets and surprisingly suppression of the truth by the British government for appeasement reasons and finally the revelation of the massacre by a by a journalist.

Alex Pettyfer is a bit dour looking here in a costume that looks more 20s than 40s and not too expressive but he shouldn't overshadow the story anyway.

Don't expect an action packed war movie. It's about revelation of the massacre.

Being an Englishman who has been living in Poland for the last 16 years I was interested to see this joint Polish-Anglo production and it is definitely worth it for those viewers who are interested in this period of history just after the end of World War II.

The film, based on a true story, covers the British and American cover up of the Katyn massacre in 1940 by the Russian NKVD of around 22,000 Poles from the intelligentsia, military, church i.e. the country's elite. The victims were shot in the back of the head and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest, to be discovered a year later by German forces who were building a road thru the forest. In efforts to maintain the Russian commitment to defeating the Nazis, the massacre was blamed on the Germans.

Alex Pettyfer is very convincing in the role of Stephen Underwood, the young journalist who sets out to discover the mystery of why so many Polish soldiers are committing suicide in his area of Bristol. This is a mission that is of no interest to his editor (Michael Gambon) and he meets several obstacles along the way in his quest to find out the truth.

He is assisted in his quest by his lover, Jeanette Mitchell (Talulah Riley) who gives a good (but a times a little stilted ) performance and his efforts are being monitored by the British, headed by Mason Mitchell (Jeanette's homosexual husband played by Henry Lloyd-Hughes, who also puts in a convincing performance). The witness is played by the well-known actor, Robert Wieckiewicz, and his role is at the crux of the film's plot.

So, all in all a definite recommendation to see this film. Piotr Szkopiak (born to Polish parents in London - they were deported from Poland in 1939), who is both the film's director and co-writer, looks like a promising young director to watch out for.

Throughout the Cold War, one of the great untold truths of World War II was Russian responsibility for the massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers and other "prisoners of war" in the Katyn forest. If Britain and the United States had tried to bring the Russians to justice, they believed it would have jeopardized the peace and revealed the real nature of Stalin's regime. Instead, both countries did their best to suppress the truth, even to the extent of espionage that included murder. Although this is a fictionalized version of these events, "The Last Witness" is also a realistic view of what journalists can and have done to bring the truth to light. This is a beautifully produced film, and it is difficult to understand what motivates some IMDB reviewers to dismiss it as "sucha a bad film." It is a wonderful and welcome film that follows half a century during which such a film could not have been made. It is also incentive to watch an arguably better film released in 2007 called "Katyn" and directed by Anrzej Wajda.

This is a nicely directed, historically accurate movie. The cast is overall very good, especially Robert Wieckiewicz.

The Last Witness will be appreciated by the more intelligent, thoughtful movie watchers, but probably not by those who look for excessive violence and explicit sexual scenes.

By times The Last Witness reminded me of some of Alfred Hitchcock's suspenseful films. But I was more deeply moved by this one than any of Hitchcock's fictional movies, because I knew these events really happened.

I was so happy to have learned about this. I had no idea. It was a very crucial time at the end of the war but it should have never been covered up and those two men lost their lives just trying to tell the truth. It's amazing the number of lives that were lost for no really reason. Hitler and the Soviets were evil.