Great movie!

Rating: 10/10 (25 November 2002)

This movie could easily make my top 15 of all time. From what I have read, it was QUITE realistic. Several of the British officers that were actually there went to the site in Germany when it was filmed. When something was wrong, they spoke up and got it fixed. (This has been on the History Channel several times.) There were almost no Americans, if any, at the time of escape. They had been moved to another camp only a couple of weeks prior to the escape. Many of the prime characters were based on actual people, most notably Attenborough. I also read the book (about 30 years ago) in high school pm which the movie was based. They had photos the Germans took of the tunnels. The movie was incredibly accurate. The tracks, the air pumps, lights, etc. It isn't the movie that was amazing, it was what the prisoners did. As far as how the prisoners were treated, for the most part, relatively well. The death rate in a German POW camp was about 1-2%. In a Japanese prison camp, about 35% of the Allied prisoners died, due to murder, torture, disease, starvation, etc. The Luftwaffe, headed by Fatso Goering, guarded Allied airman because Goering had a weird sense of camaraderie with fellow flyers. The Gestapo or SS are the ones who shot the 50 prisoners. These war criminals were later faced war crimes trials. This is one hell of a movie. But find the book yourself.