Nearly...

Rating: 7/10 (29 April 2009)

This film has a lot going for it. Mostly the directing which was impressive the whole way through. Unfortunately the characters let it down. Although there are several occasions when the character talk about themselves and about being back home I still feel we never truly get to know the characters. Which means we never really care about them, and the fact that the lieutenant doesn't care about his own life doesn't help things one bit.
As for realism etc, I hear its being praised a lot, though I'm not a soldier so I can't comment. I will say that the boys don't seem to have a lot of backup throughout the film. They seem to do an awful lot themselves. But maybe that's just how it is.
Bottom line, I enjoyed this movie, but its not up there with the classics greats. In a way maybe its too close to the fact, as in I feel like I'm reading the daily newspaper. The story seems so familiar, its being played out right now half way across the world. Don't get me wrong, the story of those soldiers deserves to be told and retold, but in the movie it feels a bit non inventive.
The whole film long I got the feeling that there wouldn't be a satisfactory ending and there wasn't. I mean the war isn't over etc, so they keep going where you left them off. This is the major problem, there's a start middle and more middle but this is a film not real life so where's the ending?