Much better than expected, even very good

Rating: 7/10 (15 April 2017)

Not a fan of war movies and battlefield scenes I had no expectation that I would enjoy this flick. And enjoy is not the right word because it is very long and certainly difficult to deal with. But there are two reasons I believe the movie is to be praised. First the hardened leader of the tank squad, WarDaddy played by Brad Pitt, reveals deep down a sympathy and a compassion for a young soldier way out of his element, an office soldier who somehow becomes a victim of army procedures and was sent to fight in a dangerous showdown with SS troops desperate to save the Heimat from the Americans in the last days of the war somewhere in western or central Germany. Pitt is tough, hard on his comrades and even harder on the Krauts he encounters. But he also, my second point, is able to be somewhat sympathetic even to the German civilians he encounters, whether they were or were not Nazi believers. The scene in the German home with the two women and the battle scared veteran Americans, plus the coming of age there of Norman the young soldier mentioned above, is very movingly done. Pitt's character is complex: a mixture of needed brutality covering perhaps a sensitivity as genuine as Norman's. You don't see this very often in these movies and I applaud those responsible for seeing past the obvious. I am not sure whether Norman's life is spared by accident or by a German soldier's sudden decision to be merciful; if the latter is meant then even a German soldier can have compassion. This did not occur often -- especially not on the Eastern Front -- but it did occur. Germans are after all not that different from us, as much as we should like to think and as much as we are justified in being skeptical.