Good beginning, average middle, powerful ending

Rating: Null/10 (26 July 2004)

This movie starts with the Malmedy massacre, which has always been controversial because researchers have had a difficult time trying to produce an accurate picture of what really occurred. The film manages to stage it fairly accurately, given the testimony from the soldiers at the time. It's worth noting under the Geneva convention, captors are allowed to shoot fleeing POW's, so technically the German's did nothing wrong and hence all who were brought to trial were eventually released.
There are times when the movie seems to create damning scenarios for the Germans that are not backed up by the historical record, such as the escapees finding a destroyed ambulance with the occupants dead. In reality, Germans did not destroy ambulances in WWII unless they were part of a larger convoy and accidentally taken out. Furthermore, some Germans in uniform behave barbarous, like when a peasant woman offers one bread and he throws it down. In reality, a German soldier would have been quite welcoming of non-ration food. So in may ways, the human motivations just seem skewed in order establish "evil".
Later in the film, four allied soldiers manage to take on ten to twenty heavily equipped German soldiers. German soldiers do things like walk into bullets, catch bullets with their heads, forget how to use their guns, and blow each other up with their own grenades. It just didn't seem realistic, though it was well filmed.
There are some surprisingly powerful moments in the film which add up to an ending more meaningful than anything Hollywood has ever managed. One character, a British pilot who meets up with the allies, is a real prick when they first meet him. At first, this put me off and it seemed like anti-British sentiment. However, Kirby Heyborne, who plays the British Oberon Winley, develops as a character, making the ending much more powerful for him having started as a nasty guy. I was surprised and moved by this redeeming outcome.
I was disappointed they chose to present a German soldier who betrays his own men as a good person. Sure, he knew one of the allies before the war, but treason is not a virtue! These Germans were fighting for their country, much of which was robbed post WWI and given to Poland and Czechoslovakia. A movie should not present a traitor as a role model in my opinion, even if he is on the enemy side.
Overall, it is great to see a film of such quality produced outside Hollywood. Diversity of ideas is a good thing, and this is just one more take on the war from a Mormon point of view, which is welcomed. As a materialist and an atheist, any religious message in the film was pretty much meaningless to me. Through the middle of the film, much like Saving Private Ryan, the soldiers have their soliloquies which belies the truth of how real soldiers would talk to one another. This movie had a great start, subdued middle, and a powerful finish which makes it worth watching.