Disappointment and Bewilderment

Rating: 3/10 (17 June 2020)

Like many folks, this came as a fairly strong recommendation among the cannon of WW2 related films. Sadly, it fell far short of expectation.
Yes, war is brutal. Yes, young people and civilians always suffer the most. These are cliches that most of us anticipated before hitting *play.* I'll spare folks the rant and just bullet the necessary points:

The story is full of plot holes and is devoid of much-needed context.
Shoddy acting makes it difficult to sympathize with characters.
Most of the budget was likely spent on the first 45 minutes of the film, because the rest is just a barren wasteland of meandering drama and poor dialogue.
Typical war tropes (i.e. honor and discipline) were so tacky and forced. They even had the nerve to portray Soviets as dumb combatants with no sense of military tactics.

Overall, it's a poor attempt to make viewers try to sympathize with the plight of German soldiers. It wasn't believable and felt forced most of the way through. Save yourself the time and just watch a WW2 documentary series instead.