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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

hyped garbage

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Weak title for a strong second world war-time drama set in a small Dutch town occupied by the German Army in early 1945. The plot centres on a young teenage boy, just on the cusp of manhood, whose curiosity and growing wish to contribute to the war effort begins to lead him into trouble, especially as his father is the conciliatory town mayor. When a young British fighter-pilot's plane comes down just outside the town and he has to kill an investigating enemy soldier on patrol, young Theo determines to track him down and lead him to safety.Realistically shot in the grey, cold winter time, the story probably includes a bit too much clichéd action which makes the twists in the tale somewhat predictable when they come. In no particular order these involve the boy's relationship with a newly-arrived uncle sympathetic to the Dutch Resistance movement, his nurse sister's burgeoning relationship with the baby-faced young Brit and his tricky relationship with his father in whom he is disappointed at his apparent cooperation with the Germans. The movie also inserts a number of nail-biting moments of near-discovery, treachery and last-minute attempted rescues, possibly too many for the story to bear in its running-time and still seem true-to-life. There's a mild rites-of-passage undertow to events as the young boy's sexual desires awaken, courtesy of a handy peephole in his upstairs room when his family put in a young girl and her family, a set of pornographic playing cards and finally, mist blatantly, when his sister gets together with the pilot.The final scene of heroic escape is again a bit too exaggerated for my taste as is the boy's overcoming his natural aversion to guns until provoked too far, but for all my caveats, it's a fast-moving, exciting and gripping story, very well-acted by most of the leads, only the young British actor playing the pilot seems too lightweight in his portrayal.I see this movie won several awards in its native Holland and I can understand why. It's a good movie which might have worked a bit better for me with a few less climactic scenes which tend to overpower the narrative and seem like an unnecessary concession to Hollywood action movie conventions.

Sloppy story; German troops intent on finding a downed Brit pilot and are unsuccessful day after day in the forest where the pilot's been hiding.But the bro and his sister make multiple unobserved daylight trips. (And the moron Germans fail to connect bicycle tracks to a hideaway.) Several times Michiel and/or Erica just drive along the road and find Jack. Screenwriter never heard of hypothermia? Twice people fall into frigid water without any apparent physical harm being done. But then again, there was never any weather cold enough to cause peoples breaths to fog up when they spoke. Plenty of electricity in hero house as well as heat....during wartime yet. Martijn Lakemeier (Michiel) not a bad actor but limited: After seeing his father murdered, hours and days later, he seems unaffected by the memory. Where's the trauma? Jack the pilot way, way too young for the part. My goodness, he's supposed to be a fighter pilot. The botched ferry ambush. Young Jack just knows that something's not right. Where does that instinct come from? And what about the 10 or 12 German riflemen who couldn't hit anything from the far bank? Speaking of the ferry ambush, if the Germans had been tipped off why wasn't there a squad or too on the side of the river where the ferry was tethered? Later on, the horse and buggy can't be overtaken by several German army vehicles. Plus more poor marksmanship including a machine gun shooting from about 100' away. Then the single most absurd thing in the movie: Jack suddenly becomes a championship rodeo performer and while the Germans are driving with their brakes on their vehicles, he jumps onto the horse and pulls Michiel after him. Later, the pursuers not that far away, Caesar is euthanized and the barely muffled shot fails to bring the soldiers to their quarry. Uncle Ben has kept his German sympathies a secret from his brother the mayor. And is stupid enough to keep incriminating evidence in the cheap suitcase? Jack is in the house only for a few hours, is being sought and yet takes the time to have sex with the sister, Erica. Folks, is that a reasonable priority? (No locks on her bedroom door either.) Jack's extremely nasty leg wound seems to heal overnight and there's no sign of a limp or any weakness in the leg. (Able to scale the bottom of a steel bridge like a trapeze artist under the very nose of yet another group of dim Germans.) My final comment is that this movie trivializes some very nasty things that happened in the Netherlands. TV Movie of the Week? Not really since occasionally some of them were not bad.

Cold January 1945. The end of war is near, but danger seems to be even more present. Nothing is more dangerous than the cornered animal. And Germans were trapped and vicious. Young Michiel, on the verge of manhood, ashamed of his collaborator father, gets involved in the war. Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems. Heroes are not always what they appear to be, neither are traitors. Those are the lessons that Michiel learns in the last few months of a bloodiest war world ever seen. Growing up is hard enough as it is, and this young man does it with courage and dignity way beyond his tender age. Beautifully filmed and acted.

Based on the autobiographical novel by Dutch author Jan Terlouw who spent five grim years under Nazi occupation and was arrested several times, Martin Koolhoven's Winter in Wartime is the coming-of-age story of a teenager who becomes involved with the Resistance when he helps a wounded RAF soldier hiding from the Germans. Written by Paul Jan Nelissen and Mieke de Jong and set in January 1945 in a small town in Holland (but filmed in Lithuania), the film is seen from the perspective of 13-year-old Michiel who, in addition to dealing with the normal problems of a teenager, must handle his complex feelings towards his father, the town's mayor, euphemistically called a "neutral" or, more directly, a Nazi collaborator. Michiel is played by Martijn Lakemeier who, despite having acted for only two months prior to the film, does a highly creditable job playing the bright but naïve teen.Though his father, Raymond Thiry (Johan Van Beusekom) has the wounded look of someone just caught stealing, he loves his son and the scene where he teaches him how to shave is genuine and quite touching, though Michiel has little respect for his dad's cozy relationship with the German occupiers. The story becomes more involved when Michiel's Uncle Ben (Yorick van Wageningen) shows up and assumes the role of a mentor to the boy, a status abdicated by his father. Though Ben is protective of Michiel and tries to keep him from getting involved, the boy inadvertently becomes part of the resistance when he finds a British soldier, Jack (Jamie Campbell Bower), hiding in an underground bunker deep in the forest and brings him food and together plan his escape.To add more tension, Michiel recruits his sister Erica (Melody Klaver), a nurse, to care for the wounded flier, a meeting that develops into a personal relationship. As the film moves to an unpredictable climax, it becomes challenging for Michiel to fully grasp where people's loyalties really lie, and this lesson is learned the hard way as part of his maturing process. Winter in Wartime avoids the usual Nazi stereotypes and presents the Germans as human beings, though Koolhoven's even-handedness becomes hard to swallow when "friendly" German soldiers stop to help Michiel and Jack repair the broken wheel of a horse-drawn carriage, not asking who they are or where they are going.Though the film is set in occupied territory in the middle of a war, it lacks a gritty look and feel. Koolhoven makes choices that constantly undermine the film's realism such as Michiel running in slow motion towards a firing squad to try and prevent an execution and a lush musical background of soaring violins that does not seem appropriate to the circumstances. In spite of its flaws, Winter in Wartime is an involving story, well acted, and confidently directed. Though they will learn little about the full extent of Nazi brutality, the film should appeal to students seeking to better understand historical events they have only read about in history texts.