Silly Hollywood Fantasy Insults Historians, Veterans, and Anyone Intelligent

Rating: 2/10 (25 April 2018)

Oodles of gritty violence. SO many guys get shot and blown up. Numerous people being burned alive, several decapitated, several summarily executed and many, many blown to pieces. Yeah, it's all there. Three hours of it. The guts, the glory, Brad Pitt is horribly scarred. And Shia's character loves Jesus. God Bless America! Check out the German that is actually stupid enough to stick his head in that tank!
Predictable.
Could write a short book about how it was unrealistic.
The scene where the young soldier goes into the bedroom with the young Fraulein (and Brad Pitt's character saying "If you don't take her in that bedroom, I will") raised my eyebrow knowing the history of the period. Tens of thousands of German women were raped by Allied troops-mostly Russians. Many committed suicide afterwards.
American troops illegally executing German prisoners is presented as something normal and accepted. In reality Brad Pitt would have found himself in the Brig. Shooting them down during the heat of battle, even if they are just standing there unarmed, is one thing. Some times during heated action you cannot take prisoners and you cannot leave them behind alive. But cold-bloodedly shooting them after they were taken prisoner was not allowed. SS Concentration Camp guards were summarily shot by Allied troops, however. Some allied troops claimed they would shoot SS who tried to surrender. Officers didn't want this happening for good reason. Because it could cause reprisals against Allied POW's. And they could also face court martial or have their records permanently besmirched if these things were done by men under their command.
They would never have put such a Greenhorn in a driver's position with zero training. Because a Sherman is not easy to drive and takes practice. They also must have practice on the guns and learn various maintenance duties. In a combat situation on-the-job training on a tank is like suicide.
I laughed when Pitt's character said "I love it in here." Those Shermans would get up over 100 degrees and stink like diesel fumes. Nobody liked being inside them. All it takes is a 12-year-old to pop up out of a ditch with a Panzerfaust and your entire crew gets lit up like human torches. And he loves it in there? Get real.
I laughed when they hit that mine and Brad asks "Can you fix it?" And he says he can. There's no way he's fixing that with out outside help and equipment!!!
It's beyond ridiculous to think a disabled Sherman tank would take on an entire SS Battalion. Anybody that did that would be mentally ill. They would run. Any Officer would order them to scuttle the tank and destroy its ordinance. An experienced tank crew would not be sacrificed like that with out specific orders and a special reason. And it would not be necessary for any reason. At this point in the war we were destroying battalions with just aircraft. The U.S. Army crushed an entire SS Armored Division with just artillery. Nobody needed to make desperate stands with a Sherman.