Thanks for the memories!

A Masterpiece!

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I almost wrote this review before I saw the movie . . Something along the lines of " Oh dear trust Uncle Sam to make a film on how they turned up to save the Limeys in World War One etc etc " What I should have done is remember the old phrase " Never assume anything because it makes an ass out of you and me " . That said it does suffer from the low budget independent film look and feel and watching the early scenes you'd be totally forgiven for thinking this was a dreary TVM . It's painfully obvious the budget didn't stretch to filming somewhere , anywhere that might resemble the Western Front in 1917-18 where a few short years of war had turned the landscape in to something resembling a muddy version of the surface of the Moon . This has led to some people on this page to dismiss COMPANY K out of hand . If you're expecting epic battle scenes then this isn't the film for you but does manage to make anti-war statements better than a lot of films with ten times the budget I've never read the book and some people might suggest that the film suffers from sticking too rigidly to the book with its episodic nature and its character-centric vignettes but I disagree . All too often in war films the characters are hidden behind uniforms and helmets and it's difficult to keep track of who is who hence we get movies like THE LONGEST DAY and THE THIN RED LINE where a host of household names appear in cameos simply to remind the audience who the character is . The storytelling technique of COMPANY K negates the need for a big name cast and the obvious use of exposition pointing out who the character is , we're introduced to the m instantly via on screen caption and his works very well . It might not be subtle but this isn't a subtle film and deals with the usual war is hell , something it never hints at in the opening . Let me just repeat that the opening scenes give the impression you're going to be watching an anti-septic PG certificate made for television production which isn't what happens . It's not explicit war porn either but concentrates of the psychological horrors of war and was actually quite shocked at some of the on screen happenings carried out by the US Marine Corps . In war movies Americans are always the good guys and behave exemplary no matter the provocations no matter what and they're always real men untouched by any horror but not in this movie . Finally a word on the musical score by Craig McConnell and Donald Stark which can be criticised as being on one hand intrusive and manipulative but is very effective and atmospheric

For this movie, my recommendation is to read the book. I have not, and do not discount the power which may have been conveyed by the original author who lived the experiences.But all credibility which this movie may have had, washed away for me because there was no dirt, no mud, no decay, no rats, no lice, no corpse stink, no depiction of the truly terrible conditions in which these people fought and slogged and died.All of the soldiers' kit was unblemished, unstained, unmuddied, looking like the producer did not want to risk the expense of getting it cleaned upon its return to the props department. The trenches looked like they had been built that afternoon.You want to tell an effective story with pictures, you have to make the pictures right, or the story doesn't get told.Go watch "All Quiet On The Western Front" for the quintessential depiction of World War I.

I write this review on Memorial Day 2008 and there's lots of talk on television and elsewhere about the sacrifice of soldiers in Iraq. In my opinion, those young women and men are giving their lives and their mental stability to an unnecessary cause created to satisfy the ego of a madman. But what about the soldiers in the Great War, the War to End All Wars - World War I? Those soldiers are the subject of Company K.William March was the penname for William Edward Campbell who, in 1933, published Company K which was hailed as a masterpiece by critics and writers alike and has been referred to as the American view of the hopelessness and brutality - just as effective and shattering as Erich Maria Remarque's classic anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front. March was a popular novelist and story writer of the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Today, his most well-know novel is The Bad Seed.March was a reclusive man who was hard to get to know. He suffered a number of nervous breakdowns - as they were called in his day - that were surely post traumatic stress episodes due to his experiences as a Marine in WWI. He died from a series of heart attacks in 1954 at the height of his writing career.The soldiers in Company K are not the great generals and leaders whose names have gone down in history but are the grunts who actually did the fighting and dying. They are not great heroes but just young men who are trying to survive the madness into which they have been injected. They are not idealized or romanticized. Some do bad things. Some are so scared they run. Some carry out insane orders. Some carry out inhumane orders. Most of those who survive go home to lead normal lives, but there are some who are never able to remove from their minds the horrors of deeds seen or deeds done.The film, Company K is not a great production. It's episodic but in a very choppy way. Is that the fault of the director or the editor? Who knows? But within each episode, the viewer is offered a realistic view of these young men caught in circumstances beyond their control. There is no glory - only guts.There are no well-known actors in this film. All are just good actors who do a good job at showing us all of the aspects of these men thrown together into the snake pit of battle.There are uncountable films about women and men in war. Some are extraordinary while some are really bad. Company K falls somewhere in the middle and it is surely worth a viewing in order to get to know some very human men.

Company K is an outstanding war film that tells a great story without resorting to clichés or stock characters. The story lines of the various members of the company weave a compelling tale of marines in World War I. They experience the discipline and training of boot camp and go off to war not expecting that death can come from unexpected places. For example, a sergeant and his squad are wiped out by an incompetent Lieutenant's order and a marine private is knifed by a boyish German prisoner while trying to play a trick on the prisoner.I read the book by William March and the movie was pretty faithful to the book. I recommend this movie to others.