Impressive

Rating: 10/10 (2 February 2008)

A wonderful and apparently historically accurate retelling of the final day's of Hitler and Nazi Germany. The actors were cast in a way so they resemble the historical figures quite closely, and the battle scenes kept me on the edge of my seat. If anybody has ever watched LEXX, you will recognize Rolf Kanies playing Hans Krebs. His fluent Russian in real life came in handy as his character had to speak in Russian during the negotiations with General Tschuikov. The movie didn't try to make any particular character appealing, except maybe for Ernst Gunter-Schenk. Considering how this bunch of men were responsible for 50 million dead it was a good idea to not portray any of the characters as 'good guys' anyway.
There was an amazing amount of research put into the film. The uniforms strove to be accurate, even the weapons and sidearms were the kind you would have seen in 1945 such as the StG44. Probably the only slip-up was the Russian soldiers all had PPSh's, and none had the PPS, which was more commonly seen in 1945. The only other niggle was a reference to "penicillin" in a phone conversation from a field commander but the Germans didn't have penicillin during WWII.