This director would get fragged in combat.

Rating: 3/10 (27 January 2015)

I only watched this film due to believing it addressed, at least to some degree, one of the worst failings in the U.S. war machine during WW2, the Sherman tank and our other armor. Starting the show with a reference to this issue, I expected something of substance to follow, but that was totally incorrect. Since I'm not a fan of Hollywood garbage, I had to look up this director and his other "work," and I immediately saw the problem. Ayer is a little boy who seems to think he can run roughshod over history, and the people whose sacrifices made possible his arrogant and foolish productions. Being criticized by the British Prime Minister for re-writing the the past, specifically the code breaker's war in the European theater, with his shlock "U-571", didn't teach him a thing, though he espoused his shame and guilt at the time. Why there's not a veteran's lobby to shut down quacks like him is a real tragedy, just like the soldier's helplessness over useless commanders. Comic books like this film belong in the kiddy aisle in life, not the history section.
The reviews I've read are spot on, covering in detail the execrable ending as well as other nonsense scenes, so I'll give the reader a little background on why our soldiers were stuck in the "Death Traps" that usually just carried them to their doom. I don't know all the details, meaning how much pressure or resistance was placed on the U.S. Army by Detroit, the manufacturers of the tanks, or the financiers. But the General in charge was named Lesley McNair, and he was incompetent on several levels, not just armor. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he insisted our tanks could stand up to German high velocity anti-tank weapons and heavy tanks, such as the Tiger I in this film and the Panther, not shown. He held up the development of a heavy tank, the Pershing M-26, which could do battle with them, until General Devers, who was actually leading troops in combat, went over his head to George Marshall. There's much more to the story, and the director has claimed to have studied Belton Cooper's work explicating the horrors and shortcomings of the Sherman, but only the opposite of that, his adolescent mockery of the tactics of our tankers, is in evidence here. It is sufficient to say that absolutely no one approached either the German tanks or their anti-tank weapons head on at this stage of the war, not voluntarily; all those types were sent to the bone yard back in France if not before. But that doesn't get other ignorant boys, as I used to be, into the theater, and doesn't give them an unrealistic view of combat making them amenable to recruitment.
The good news for future armored units after WW2 is that McNair was killed by friendly fire in Normandy, when a heavy bomber actually dropped one right in his foxhole. Now THAT'S what I call precision bombing! It's a shame this phlegm maker is turning people's suffering into more padding for his bank account, without any leader in the U.S. stepping up as did Tony Blair previously.
But that's Hollywoodtown Jake. It don't mean a thing.