Horrific brilliance that no-one should miss

Rating: 9/10 (12 September 1998)

I'd read plenty of reviews both here and in magazines before I saw this film - most described was the first twenty minutes of the movie concerning the Omaha beach landings in France. The horrors written in those text prepared me for what I knew were going to be gruesome scenes - or so I thought. Wrong WRONG WRONG. The first twenty minutes will be stuck etched on my brain until I die - if nothing else they serve as the best reason I've ever seen for pacifism. When the first boat lands and the bullets rip the occupants to shreds you feel you are right there with them - then you know that no film review will do justice to the visuals in this film. To say it 's the best war movie ever made is a kind of injustice - I didn't feel I was watching a war film more a documentary. You've seen people shot before a million times on film and tv right? Wrong again - you feel every bullet thats fired in this film and beleive me every one feels and sounds like a hot piece of metal that kills. When the first twenty minutes are over you feel numb and you stay like that until the last image of the film has left the screen. To complain about the plot is essentially pointless - sure its straight forward and sure its one sided (the germans all being depicted as pretty much emotionless skinheads - the only one in the film for any length of time being a nasty piece of work who you want to die anyway) but I dont think this is meant as a film in that way. To me it's a document of the horrors of war and of the futility of it - If I were a young man thinking of joining the forces before seeing this I'd rip the application form up after, any romantic ideals of that lifestyle get ripped up with it in this film.
See this movie, be hurt and haunted by it's images but most of all remember it as a document of why we are free today.
Sometimes I wonder why they bothered.