Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Masterpiece!

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I picked this movie up on a whim, one of many recent low budget WW2 movies that seem to have been hitting the shelves of the straight to DVD market. I have no problem with low budget films of this type and recently there have been some good ones and this one starts out with noble intentions as the opening titles would suggest, that the film is about the story of a real unit, made up of Americans and Canadians (The Film the Devils Brigade covers the actual unit) but here unfortunately is where the factual content of the film ends.Set just before the invasion of Scily an American recon unit (Apparently the 101st Airborne who never actually were there) are captured and another team is sent to rescue them. That's the plot in a nutshell. The DOP has gone to some considerable effort to give the film a warm feel to represent the right part of Europe, but this can't let the film escape the fact that it was obviously all shot in California. I would have thought someone could have least grabbed a camera and taken some shots of the actual island which could have been nicely edited in to compensate for this. The acting wasn't all bad, and there were some funny lines,(plenty are just awful) but that's the problem with this film, it gives the impression its going to be about a factual battle, then half way through tries to become Kelly's Heroes and does neither successfully. The unit don't act like a military unit, moving with caution in one shot and then sauntering along the same path with not a care in the world in the next moment. The Nazi officer is just comical and stands in the middle of the road firing his gun while gunfire rages all around him. The fight scenes are actually quite boring and full of continuity issues and often make little sense to the plot or serve to enhance the story. (Such as it is) This project obviously started out with good intentions and its not as bad as 'Rhineland' (That's way worse) but somewhere it got lost and couldn't decide what it wanted to be. If your going to make films set in Europe, then you need to look at A Midnight Clear for an example of how to do it properly (Shot entirely on location in the USA)I wanted to like this film and for a brief moment I thought I might, but in the end there was just too much that was wrong with it, which was a shame, because there could have been a good little film here. Alas sadly not.

To be fair, I watched only the first 20 minutes of this movie, so my comments are only based on that. I might have hung around if WWII Sicily's "landscape" wasn't so easily recognizable as that of Southern California. I gave up hope when several shots showed the film's characters walking along railroad tracks on top of modern concrete ties with modern signals in the background.I get the feeling this movie was a film school project. And if it was, then I guess it's OK for that purpose. If not, at least it was a good opportunity for inexperienced actors to put something in their blank resumes.The combat special effects were OK... enough has been said by others regarding the realism of the combat itself, but I thought the special effects used for weapons discharge and bullet flight was OK... more realistic than those we used to see 15-20 years ago. That earned this movie its 3rd star.

We'll where to begin. These guys could have used a military adviser. Historical and specifically military historical accuracy were obviously not the "objectives" of this exercise. From the mish- mash of infantry weapons used to the Vietnam era M35 Deuce and a half's. The M35's are those two and one half ton cargo trucks that were used in the background of the garrison sequence. Also some one neglected to tell the film makers that troops were generally clean shaven when in garrison, especially officers. Wardrobe was all over the place. Female resistance fighter wearing contemporary clothing. US Army uniforms are a "hodgepodge" the German uniforms are none better. The Nazis are all on foot. Which is ironic since they kinda of perfected mechanized warfare can we say "Blitzkrieg" anyone? Oh yeah these guys are all members of the illustrious 1st Special Service Force. According to the synopsis on the back of the sleeve this takes place in 1942 unfortunately 1st Special Service Force didn't actually see action until May of 1943 and it was in the Aleutian islands in the North Pacific against the Japanese not the Mediterranean theater. They finally made it to Italy in November 1943.One more tidbit regarding the box art. On the back is this nifty( Possible spoiler) artwork of an aerial dogfight between two P-51D's and a BF 109G (these are fighter aircraft). Doesn't happen in the movie. Please avoid this film. Believe the tag line. "The worst is yet to come" especially if you watch this movie.

They should have spent some money on research on the weapons or sacked the person responsible for it and hire a 5 year old kid in the first 5 minutes you are treated to a squad of soldiers with bolt action foam rifles be fired as if they were m1's that was the most I could stand with out smashing the screen on my TV.If you watch this and enjoy it you are to thick to read this review they did seem to spend dome money on the effects on wounds the best being a nice neck shot on a GI sending blood flying every where but that was no where enough to make me watch any more than five minutes of the utter dribble they call a movie.