An American fairy tale

Rating: 1/10 (12 January 2002)

I watched this film on DVD for the first time having avoided it for so long. My concerns were justified and echo many of the posts here.
It is claimed that historical innacuracies and little rewrites of history are to be allowed in any film. What concerns me is that all of these inncuracies in many films are ALL pointed against the British. They form a steady drip, drip of anti Britishness which can hardly be warranted. I feel that reasons for this are possibly that our inherent sense of decency means that we tolerate such criticism, and that we are easier targets than some of the real villans in the world, whom Hollywood seems frightened to portray.
Let me mention one scene in particular
SPOILERS *****
The burning of the people in the barn, this has been mentioned previous, and obviously this never happened. What is disturbing is that the only well documented instances of this actually happenning was when the Waffen SS burned the village of Orudur in France in 1944 with all of its inhabitants. and also in countless villages on the eastern front. The director, Roland Emmerich, a German, should be ashamed for linking this atrocity with Britain who did more than any other country to fight such tyranny in WW2 - disgraceful ! and remember Britain led the world in doing away with slavery when the colonies fought to retain it. Even the Alamo, was fought to retain slavery in Texas after the Mexicans had banned it - didn't see that in the film of the Alamo.
This is a fairy tale - read the history books.