Plot is contrived and the setting is unrealistic

Rating: 2/10 (5 October 2008)

I just watched this film for the second time, and it was astonished how contrived the plot and overall settings were. As I started watching quite late into the start of the movie, the first thing that got me irked was the fact that band members/entertainers, in the mess hall, were all parodying Hitler, if somehow that would be allowed. Any passing Nazi, would have shot them dead on the spot, and more so, the camp commandant would have been relieved of duty, or at worst, shot by the Gestapo. It simply wouldn't been allowed to happen. The Germans at this time, considered themselves the Master race. Any sign of insolence from anybody, would be instant death.
There is a whole number of these plot/action points which happen throughout the movie, like the Willis character being insolent to the camp commandant. There seems to be a time-line, call it the time-line of forgetfulness. In the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, and even 90's there were still people about, who could give you first hand details about conditions in the camp like this. Now, sadly most of them are dead, so it quite hard for set/directors, to get good idea of how the camp would work. So we end up with films like this, which has strayed so far from what it would be really like.
The real contrivance though, is the trial. Holding a military trial, and commandant allowing it, is absurd to contemplate, almost laughable. The fact he is allowing it, would be seen on the part of the allies, as collaboration, by the Willis character. Instead, the camp leading allied officers would hold an internal military tribunal, if held at all, and the enemy, wouldn't even hear about, why, because they were at war. So we have this contrivance, with Farrell, with daft dialogue, saying i'm going to kill you, if you do that. It was war. No members of the Allies would threaten each other. Simply too absurd to think about really. I know you have to suspend belief, when watching films of this type, but there is a finer point, in the fact, that any such trial would have been used as propaganda by the Axis powers. Although it is the central tenet of the film, why would the plot provide for the Willis character to push for a trial. Absurd!. Keep it real.
I could list the duffers, like Willis drinking whisky with the camp commandant, the camp commandant alluding to a "real American trial", .... This is the German master race, the 1000 year third Reich, all that madness.
Its a pity really, the actors are first class, and are wasted on this absurd plot.