A little uneven

Rating: 4/10 (10 July 2019)

The beginning of the movie shows Colin Farrell leaving his army base with a fellow soldier, and on the way out, they're ambushed by undercover Nazis. His buddy dies, but Colin leads a desperate chase through the snowy forest, eventually getting caught after falling into a trench full of dead frozen bodies. It's a very violent and creepy scene, and since the entire rest of the movie never even references it, I have no idea why it was included. The rest of the movie takes place in a POW camp and has to do with a court martial hearing, and the upsetting first ten minutes could have easily been shaved off.
At the POW camp, Colin meets fellow soldiers Cole Hauser, Linus Roache, Maury Sterling, Sam Jaeger, Sam Worthington, and Colonel Bruce Willis, the head honcho who decides everything and even has a working relationship with the prison commander, Marcel Iures. If you keep your eyes open, you'll see Adrian Grenier for a few minutes, but don't get too attached to him. When black prisoners enter the camp, tensions rise and some of the soldiers turn on one another. Eventually, there's a court martial, but I won't tell you the reason for it, since it's almost halfway through the film before it starts.
For me, the most interesting part of the movie was the introduction to the POW camp. There's a very moving scene where the German train gets attacked by Allied planes, and the prisoners, freed from the compartment, fear they'll be mistaken for German troops. They scatter around in clumps, until finally the audience sees an aerial shot of their design: gigantic human-made letters of POW, and the planes leave them alone. The first impression of everyone's characters is also interesting, but once the court martial starts, the story turns pretty predictable and I found it hard to remain invested. The upside is you'll get to see some good performances, notably from Terrence Howard.
Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to violence, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.
DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie will not be your friend. The first ten minutes are filmed with a handheld camera, and some angles swirl, swoop, or zoom quickly without warning, and it will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"