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The Lost Battalion
Fact-based war drama about an American battalion of over 500 men which gets trapped behind enemy lines in the Argonne Forest in October 1918 France during the closing weeks of World War I.
Release : | 2001 |
Rating : | 7 |
Studio : | |
Crew : | Director of Photography, Director, |
Cast : | Ricky Schroder Phil McKee Jamie Harris Jay Rodan Adam James |
Genre : | Drama History War TV Movie |
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Simply Perfect
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
being very interested in history, i tried to check this movie out. there aren't that many ww1 movies out there (all the focus is for some reason on ww2), so i was a little excited. the movie is based on a true story about a group of American soldiers, that got isolated in a wood on the western front. i don't know how well it keeps up with actual events, but i guess that they made room for some action scenes (it is a war movie after all). one of the things i normally criticize on a war movie, that show us the perspective from the allies, is the "stupid and easy killed" German soldiers (the German army were actually in both world wars a dangerous fighting force). but as far as i know, the Germans lost many men in the woods, so i will go with their high losses. a hilarious thing is the German yelling in the fight scenes. its the same guy yelling the same insults (in bad spoken German) all the time, its really funny to hear if you speak German. all in all its really clear to see that it is a TV movie, so don't expect to get more then that. it has the special atmosphere that a TV movie has. it feels a little cheap, a little cheesy, but you enjoy it anyway. and so is it for this movie. sometime it feels to cheap and cheesy, but you will enjoy it. go check it out, if you have some hours to kill.
There's a real trepidation watching an American war film not set in Vietnam . It's not just the victors who write history but Hollywood as well , and Hollywood history goes along the lines of " Germans are cruel and stupid, the French are stupid and easily beaten and the British talk like royalty and wait for the Americans to turn up to save them " . Who can forget the offensive scene in FRIENDS where Elliot Gould's character tells the British wedding party that " If it wasn't for us you'd be speaking German " ? In truth Britain wouldn't have won the second world war if it wasn't for American intervention . But likewise if Britain had fallen to the Nazi jackboot before Pearl Hsrbor and Hitler had still declared war on Germany how would America be able to defeat Germany . Let's not forget either that the destruction of Nazi Germany was mainly down to the Soviet Union which isn't something you see in a Hollywood movie . So when an American TVM company makes a film featuring American soldiers fighting in World War One I feared history was going to be rewritten in a manner befitting The Ministry Of Truth from 1984 Thankfully this isn't how things panned out . TLB isn't a great war film but one thing it's not blatantly guilty of is stating that the American Expiditionary Force won the Great War single handed . Of course the film focuses on a very small microcosm of the 100 Days Offensive , more specifically the battle of the Argonne Forest where a battalion of AEF soldiers are cut off and surrounded by a larger German force in the dying weeks of the war And this is the problem with the film . It's trying to show the bravery of the Americans while at the same time taking an anti-war stance . It's trying to have its cake and eat it at the same time which means we the audience aren't treated to anything new . There's also something poignant about getting killed in a war in a period where the outcome is certain . BAND OF BROTHERS made this point quite blatantly but here it's not very clear though it would have been to the real life combatants The battle scenes themselves are shockingly graphic for a TVM production and are very bloody . One can't help thinking that despite the violent nature something is missing and that is wide shots . By this I mean director Russell Mulcahy frames the action too tightly , there's rarely ever more than three or four characters in frame and one can't help suspecting a lack of budget meant a very small cast of extras . The fight scenes never appear truly cinematic to say the ones in THE BLUE MAX . So in summary this is a war film that in the context of a TVM is relatively impressive but will never win anyone's vote for greatest war movie
well first of all who ever said that uniforms weren't accurate wow! you are a genius!! they can't be correct, it is a chargeable offense. impersonating military officer!!!! so the movie can never be 100% because who remembers what exactly is said and done in battle? and people standing up during fire...it looks like squad rushes to me which is still used in todays military so you really are an uneducated person. the movie is as accurate as law allows it to be. i believe it was a pretty good movie, the actors did a decent job, there are some inaccuracies ( a private yells at a captain, that would not happen in almost any situation, at least not in the us armed forces) and they did take a little dramatic liberties with conversations and personalities but overall it is a good movie and gives a good picture of the military abilities during WWI
1) I am not weapon expert, but even i can see difference between U.S. army riffles in WWI and WWII. In movie we can see privates, armed with "M1 Garand" (invented in year 1932!), not authentic "1903 Springfield" (aka "Silent Death"), who privates use until WWII. Difference - M1 can load 1,5 times more ammunition and 3 times more fire rate! M1 was semi - automatic, Springfield requires reloading after every shot. Little difference?! 2) German army uniforms has borrowed from 1940 Year too. Especially - helmets. German helmets until end of WWI have significant pike on top, we cannot see even one in movie. And if we make little additional search in archives - how much truthful is this "True Story"? I am surprised, how much "truthful" can be film directors in a pursuit of cheap propagation.