Reviews

Enemy at the Gates (2001) is a powerfull film which tells the story of how the Russians managed to stem the German onslaught in the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) against overwhelming odds. The film is definetly one of the best warfilms in the last ten years, it´s above the typical hollywood war films which tend to give a false picture of the things really were.

ETTG features great performances, breathtaking special effects (the Stuka divebomber attack) and a very good plot.

The only thing that really bothered me was how in the end the audience was reminded of how monstrous (the hanging of little Sascha) the German soldier was - just when I was beginning to think that for once a war movie shows a German soldier with human feelings.

I saw this movie just by accident on TCM when I was surfing through the channels.

The movie tells the story how just after World War II, a train carrying 250 million dollars in gold from the German Reichsbank is hijacked by renegade U.S soldiers. When the Russians hear about it they are furious and want the gold back since it should be shared by all the allies, General Patton, old "Blood & Guts" a well known anti-communist takes it his job to retrieve every single bullion to show off to the Soviets.

While the story gets a promising start it bogs down a bit after the first 30 minutes, the story gets just too unfocused also the casting could have been better, Sophia Loren is far from convincing and McGoohan is certainly not at his best, if Hough would not have tried to get more audience by starring a lot of big names like Loren and Montague and just have hired other actors who could played the characters more convincingly this could have been a better film.

Brilliant casting, setting and directing creates a very interesting story and gives a unique look to the 1960s Germany. Watch out especially for Voight who gives his best performance so far. Max Schell is equally good as the sinister war criminal Roschmann (based on a real character) unfortunately Frau Miller and Roschmann never meet during the film, it would have been interesting to see Max Schell and his sister Maria Schell exchange a few dialogues.

Harrison Ford is the president of the United States, and mighty bad ass one man army he is. I wonder if Petersen ment this film to be a parody? the evil Soviet Union threatens to come back! the president of USA is kidnapped by a bunch communist terrorists! but be afraid no more! Harrison Ford steps up and teaches the bad ivans a lesson.

This has got to be the worst movie I have ever seen. Full of cliches, laughably typical red neck patriotism and equally laughable plot!

I was rooting for the "terrorists" for the whole film.

I´m one of the old guard Bond fans who think that Connery was the one and only Bond (though Lazenby did also very well). Moore brought too much humour with him and the latter films lack the atmosphere which the first seven films had, also the plots became very thin and too much focus was put on Bond´s toys and gadgets, "Live and let die" is a real stereotype of that latter genre. I give it a one star out of five.

One of the worst propaganda stunts I´ve seen, the movie holds a childish view of Stalin´s totalitarian state; People sing and dance and nobody has any worries. In reality after the horrible reign of the communists most of the population welcomed the Germans as their saviours (although they later discovered their liberators were almost as bad as the Russians).

I hope that nobody takes this film seriously.

"Colditz" was shown here in Finland as a rerun in 1997-98. It was based on the books "Colditz and the Latter Days" by Pat Reid which tell the story of a group of Allied POWs who have been sent to the most heavily guarded prison camp in Germany.

The series was so good that I did not miss a single show of it, I also bought the books on Colditz written by Reinhold Eggers (known as Ullmann in the series) and Pat Reid.

The series show how the POWs had to live in Colditz, a few went insane some died while trying to escape and some made a succesful escape. The series is among the best when it comes to drama.

Fall from Grace describes the war of the young English-French Catherine, her mother is killed in 1940 during the German campaign against France, Catherine escapes to England where she eventually volunteers to become a spy.

The Movie is based on a book by Larry Collins. Tara Fitzgerald as Catherine does her job well and manages to pull off some touching scenes in the last scenes of the film.

However Richard Anconina as Paul is not nearly as convincing as Fitzgerald, he lacks touch and does not fit to his role.

York and Fox give good back up as all experienced actors should, the Director does his bit nicely and in all I´d say this movie is not bad at all, I give it 8 from 10.

The movie tells the story of one Georg Elser, a German carpenter who plotted to kill Hitler in 1939 (although it has been suggested that the plot was actually staged by the SS).

This was Karl Maria Brandauer´s premier work as a director and not bad, he also stars the leading part.

This movie is a very exciting one and propably interests anyone who likes history.

"De Partizanen/The partisans" is the story of a small dutch resistance group who capture fifty German soldiers.

De Partizanen was pretty good and interesting story. The flashbacks from the -90s to the 40s worked well and in all the acting was fine, my favorite character was the German NCO Beck, played by Mathias Herrmann.

If you are interested in the resistance movement of the occupied countries or in WW2 in general this movie should be interesting.

I dont think this movie is anything special, there have been a dozen other movies on "Racism" and many other movies on WW2 air combat which have been better.

The one thing that caught my attention are the horrible aerial scenes which lack realism, for example the laughable scene in which one of the pilots sinks a destroyer with his six .50 caliber machine guns, was that for real?

Another thing is how the same guy destroys a Me-109 fighter, In one scene the guy is on the same altitude with the german on the next scene he´s above the enemy and on his six o'clock.

In the end of the film there´s a lot of talk how these guys did not lose a single bomber to enemy action and how they shot down the first German jets etc..

Wrong again, I have not heard anything about the 332nd Fighter Groups jet kills, the first jets were shotdown by the British Mosquito fighters in France. Secondly I dont think there´s any big deal on how the group did not lose any bombers, if one knows anything about WW2 aerial combat history one would know that there was very little Axis aerial activity in the Northern Italy where the 332nd operated, the main forces of the Luftwaffe were set against the 8th AF in Germany.

From what I´ve read this FG did not produce a single ace (a pilot with five kills) when for example the 20th FG in England had 42 aces in its ranks.

Instead of this outrageous "movie" Mr. Markowitz could have made a film on a subject which deserves one, the best fighter pilots the world has known; Erich Hartmann, the man who shot down 352 planes (more than the whole 332nd FG) or maybe Hans-Joachim Marseille, the man who shot down 17 planes in one day, or a movie on Georg-Peter Eder a Luftwaffe ace who who escorted a shot up B-17 to its base, refusing to shoot down the helpless men.

This movie was as fun as enema. The "plot" is full of cliches, the actors certainly werent after any Oscars ( I wonder how an actor of the calibre of Pleasance was talked into this bizarre freak show?) Dudikoff does some of the worst acting in the history of film. The last insult was the german accent imitation by Vaughn and the anonymous German captain.

I find it unbelievable that OHMSS is so underrated as it is. When one thinks how crappy films Moore made, like for example "The Moonraker" or "A view to a kill", it is bad taste to claim that OHMSS is among the worst Bonds ever. The movie marked the end of the era of the more realistic and serious Bond films. The movie is a real gem, it has far more style than the movies which came after it. It also follows Fleming´s original story unlike the rest. In short, Lazenby did a good job as Bond when one thinks this was his first film ever. Rigg, who had more experience in acting does equally some fine acting as the one and only Mrs. Bond. Savalas clearly enjoys his role as Blofeld and has far more criminal and sinister look than Pleasance had. The plot is among the best and the scenery is fantastic. The film also has the premier ski chase scenes which offer some great action. The movie is a bit too long but if you really enjoy the Bond movies you dont notice it. I give the movie 9 out of 10.

Visually, the best WW2 movie. In other ways, far from the best. The movie is loaded with errors and falls into demonizing the German soldier and praising the American. A few examples, far from the reality the combat scenes show the Germans acting like cattle without ANY strategy at all they just run and shout, one funny part is the behavior of the German tankers, they drive in a ruined village in a VERY narrow street, like they have never heard of ambush! -One starts to think if the script writer has ever heard of

the capabilities of the German panzer crews, SS-Captain Michael Wittmann attacked and destroyed 48 armored fighting vehicles alone in a single action! The most absurd part is the -"Macgyver/Rambo scene"-when Capt. Miller and friends start to throw the mortar grenades slaughtering a few dozen Germans. The most unforgivable error is that there were NO SS-units with Tiger tanks operational in Normandy at this point of time. This movie is way overestimated.

Dietl´s movie is based on real events, in 1983 a forger called Konrad Kujau made millions of dollars by writing the bogus diaries of Adolf Hitler. Although the movie has a poor start it developes into a

pretty good comedy, The most amusing parts are the wordgames, and the performances of Uwe Oschenknecht as the slick antique salesman/forger and Götz Georg as equally

slick journalist.

I real life the Stern magazine which bought the diaries had a proper lesson when they received a letter written (in Hitler´s handwriting!) by an anonymous German humorist:

"I hereby confirm that my diaries are real"

Signed: A.Hitler

Tadaa.. here´s one straight from the propaganda boys, the army that conquered half Europe is now known as the brainless trigger-happy goons. The story is porked, six guys plus one lady is sent to the middle of Bavaria to free a captured american general, and while at it, discover all the enemy spies in Britain, kill the enemy officers + 1000 man garrison, blow up a castle and ofcourse kill the traitor(s) in the team. Sounds complicated? not at all. As if thats not enough, there´s also the idiotic "waz iz zis!?!" mumbling, which goes for the german language. And the customes are´nt bad, as an amateur historian I had some fun time watching a Gestapo officer wear a chestfull of combat medals. If you have nerves of steel and you fancy torturing yourself then go ahead watch this one.

A few weeks before the end of the war Lieutenant Commander Gerber has been ordered to sail to Japan carrying a load of Uranium oxide, which is one of the key components to build an atomic bomb, Gerber will also have to take passengers, amongst them two japanese navy officers, a fanatical military judge, and a man who is involved in the conspiracy to assasin Hitler. To make the journey even more dangerous a spy in the U-boat´s base in Kristiansand, Norway has sent a message warning the British about the U-boat.

The story of the LTC Gerber´s boat is based on the true story of Wolfgang Hirschfeld´s book "U-boat Diary" although much dramatized.

The movie tells the story of "Il Duce´s" or Benito Mussolini´s last days. Abandoned by his black shirts and supporters, Mussolini is haunted by the Partisans, Allies, and even the Germans (who want bring him to Germany) Due to the great performance of Rod Steiger (Mussolini) and interesting plot + good music this is the best Italian movie I have seen.