its a student film....not a feature.

Rating: 2/10 (24 May 2008)

First i must say well done to get a low budget, non-studio film out there. It is important to make and have alternative films getting made. I I only give it a 2 because its a low budget feature, not an easy thing to get made at the best of times.
HOWEVER, in saying that, just because it doesn't have lots of money behind it does not mean that it is aloud to get away with being a badly made, badly thought through movie. This is a student film, simple as that. I am genuinely very shocked to see that people have said it is their favourite war movie, better than Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers...you must be joking me.
If you don't have a story you have no film. And this film has no story. IT looked like it was sent out to be made on its first draft. Very 2-D and extremely generic, predictable and lacking in tension character development or even characters for that matter. As i read earlier and agree with from other comments, the tense moments were not tense, you did not care about the characters.
The lines all seemed forced by the actors. And actors can only work with what they are given. And their acting wasn't all that bad. The characters have no depth, neither does the story. What they writers where going for had been done so many times before and nothing new or different was added to them.
The filming was confusing. Usually a pan or a cut or a track is for a reason, it is instigated or prompted by a movement, a character turning, and truck driving by etc, but here as these soldiers "strolled" through the forest camera movements came in at random, distracting from the story. Bringing you out of the illusion...if there was even one from the beginning.
Last of all the sound design was catastrophic. Levels where all over the place, and when guns fired at times there was no sound, maybe this was for dramatic effect but it didn't work. all i could think was "where is the gun shot".
Low budget films are important, but that is no excuse to waste time and money on a story that goes no where but following people wandering round a forest, and that is all that happens.
Nothing to rush out to watch.