Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

If you love B-movies, about criminal investigations, and aren't too picky about details, then you will like this Spanish crime drama. The plot: In 1943 a serial killer is on the loose, among the Spanish soldiers (the so called Blue Division - Division Espanola de Voluntarios) who are fighting alongside the Germans against the Russian on the Eastern front. The only clue is a part of Spanish nursery rhyme that is carved into the chest of the victims. The private Arturo Andrade, a former police inspector, is ordered to investigate the case. The problem? The Blue Division consists of around 18.000 men, and the task is seemingly impossible. It is also extremely difficult for Arturo, being a private, to investigate a crime within the military hierarchy, during wartime. Arturo tries his best, and slowly manages to gather the evidence he needs. Here in lies the flaw of the manuscript; the clues come a bit too cheap. One scene - where Arturo scours through mail inside a truck which is driven at full speed - is particularly awkward. The end is also not the typical CSI-end (we found the killer and sent him to jail). Despite these flaws, I must admit that I enjoyed this movie and recommend it to those who like B-crime dramas.

Soldiers find a dead Spanish soldier frozen in the icy battlefield. Private Arturo Andrade astutely notices that the guy did not freeze to death, but was murdered in a ritualistic manner. Arturo was then assigned to lead the investigation, that led him a complicated maze of Nazism, Freemasonry and Russian Roulette.The time period was very interesting. 1943, during World War II at a time when Spanish soldiers were fielded to serve in Nazi Germany. However, that piece of history turned out to be nothing more than an elaborate backdrop.The start of this film was so beautifully shot and the development of the story in the first half of the film was so tense and well-done. However, when we get to the second half, I do not know what happened, but suspense that built up all and the patience you have invested in trying to get to the bottom of this mystery collapse like a failed soufflé and go to waste.

It's interesting someone use as background to his narrative one aspect that most want to forget. The presentation of a thriller with the background given by the participation of the Blue Division in World War II allows the director to skip the obvious ideological implications and to present, however, an important part of the history of Spain. But unfortunately this is the only merit of the film. The performances are uneven, but are acceptable in the context of an idea or clever narrative presented in innovative ways, as the latter does not occur even the good performances are diluted. The plot is held until the outcome has to be solved, and the outcome is poor, simplistic and devoid of any emotional impact. The effort of costumes is valuable, but the value of production falls dramatically when using badly the obvious limits of a short budget. Maybe have been wiser to use the limited mount of powder that were available to make a convincing explosion in the only place that was necessary for the narrative and not a string of micro-explosions resulting almost pathetic. The wink that makes to the stereotype Nazi evil-murderer, probably with the sole purpose of to be nice with those who could not see with good eyes a film focused on the active participation of Spanish volunteers on the wrong side, as history tells us , could be accepted considering that every film needs funding, but it is less acceptable that support the whole plot, making it obvious and not very sustainable from logic. Understanding that the director make a huge effort to avoid by all means that his movie looks like pro Falangist, for sure he want to continue filming in the future, it too exceeds to present Spanish soldiers in a very Hollywood logic "horrible war that I do here," forgetting the immense historical fact that all who were enrolled in the Blue Division were volunteers, nationalist and Falangist, who considered themselves as part of a crusade of new type. In conclusion, and this is the meaning of this review, I advise you watch the movie with great generosity, especially valuing the fact that someone dares to tell a story accepting that there was also a B-side in WWII that is equally valid as background for human stories, but having clear that neither the human nor the story here presented have outstanding intrinsic qualities, and the director, less that all of them.

this movie has brought me to a teary sleeping stage with constant big yawns one after another. the shooting is not bad, the casting, okay, the directing, well, shall i say, quite dead-beat due to a lousy and loosely knitted screenplay. the plot is not quite interesting either. those Spanish soldiers wearing nazi German's uniforms, all looked too new and too clean, a sharp contrast to the arranged wounded treatment condition. the dialog is also very boring with lot of unnecessary conversations among those soldiers. there lacks any tension during the east front invasion. soldiers didn't look like in a war but a walk in the park. still got time and morale in gambling, drinking, fornicating with the Russian local females who looked more urban instead of peasant-like, all wearing nice and clean dresses, while those Russian people exposed in the open wearing rustically, shabby and poorly, so contrast to those young Russian women came on the horse wagon for the free chow and ride by the Spanish soldiers. there seems to have endless mistakenly arranged fake scenes that mindlessly exposed the incapable knowledge of how to shoot a no-big-deal murder mystery during the harsh winter of the Russian front. by blindly and generously praising the courage to expose the involvement of the Spanish army jointed forces with the nazi German military forces to invade Russia did not deserve my compliment at all, because i am judging whether a movie is good or bad by only concentrating on the movie itself instead of the historical facts or the courage of showing such true involvement.this is an overly ballooned, overly exaggerated movie just like a senior's enlarged prostate that constantly giving you peeing pressure but when you visit the restroom and standing in front of the urinal, all you got is couple of drops instead of torrent. this movie never gave you any thrilling or suspenseful feelings but false hope of expectation through out the whole playing time. just a hollow script carried out by a incapable director. what a disappointment.