State Of The Art

Rating: 9/10 (10 May 2002)

This is the best war-movie I've ever seen, perfect cast and a great story by the master Alistair MacLean. It's good the movie sticks quite close to the novel, but some corners have to be cut or it would be a 12 hour show. If you've read the novel you'll notice there's quite a bit more violence in the movie, very few guards were killed in the novel but the death count is high in the movie. Also in the endscenes they attack an airfield at dawn to get to their plane, originally they get there in the middle of the night and the airfield is just a simple stip with no barracks or control towers, and no men at night. Fortunately they've kept the excitement from the novel, the true purpose of the mission is not revealed until quite late on, typical for a story by MacLean.
Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood both shines, however I do miss the rough humor that Schaffer uses in the novel, (and his daydreaming about Heidi, and savoy grill), but that's properly not good for a broader movie audience.
I vote 9 of 10 for it as there's a few issues that's a bit annoying: Why do the Germans speak English, but it's the same problem in many other films also. And why couldn't Schaffer end up holding hands with Heidi when they
went home (they did so in the novel.)