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I love this movie so much

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I'm an avid history buff - particularly interested in WW2. I did not know until watching this film the first time that Ireland was neutral during WW2. Who knew? Obviously not me.The acting is great and very believable. The scenes are beautiful - right out of an Irish painting - and the plot is engaging. Some very good American and British humor, to boot.Just to be on the safe side, let me warn you that SPOILERS FOLLOW.The only negatives to the film were I found it hard to believe that a British bomber would make it all the way back from a raid over the Continent and overfly England to over Ireland and not realize they weren't still over France. "'Clocks' shot out" or otherwise, that one seemed a bit of a stretch.And, I love a movie where the "guy gets the girl." So, I was disappointed that Miles died and the German Count actually returned after the War to marry Mattie. At least they named their kid "Miles."

Utter crap is the only way to describe this movie. The characters apart from Grabriel Byrnes character were all unlikeable. Bill Campbell being the worst i hated his character from the beginning and i never ceased to hate his character.Jean Butler came across as too easy and looked bored in some scenes. I know this movie is based on fact as i have seen documentaries on RTE about it, but please they did'nt even film it in Ireland. Of course being that your aiming at an international audience lets put some steretypical irishness into it like the 'Lets get the Irish Drunk so we can escape'.I thought really i did i was going to like this movie but i found myself rooting for the Irish soldiers and not for the prisoners who all acted like a bunch of spoiled children.I am not surprised in real life many Irish women landed up getting together with the German soldiers as the allies came across as idiots.

The Brylcreem Boys takes as its subject matter a fascinating true situation but doesn't really seem to know what to do with it. Set in the neutral Republic of Ireland during WWII the story revolves around a group of British and German servicemen who find themselves interned in the same POW camp, separated by only a thin strip of land between two fortified fences through which they trade insults. And that's pretty much it, really. There's an unremarkable romance between a Canadian serving in the British RAF (Bill Campbell) and a comely local lass (Jean Butler), and a predictably resolved rivalry between him and German officer Count Rudolph von Stegenbek (Angus McFadyen), but for most of the movie you get the impression that the writers didn't really know what to do with the subject matter.The basic premise would seem to lend itself to a comedy in the vein of an old Ealing production: a prison camp from which none of the allied forces wish to escape, where their pay slips are received monthly, from which they receive day-passes to visit the local race meetings, and in which the only bars are the type that serve pints of beer. The comic possibilities would seem endless but the humour here is almost non-existent, as are any elements of suspense or tension, and the writers seem to approach certain aspects that could be of interest – the effect on Stegenbek of learning that his comrades slaughtered a French farming family who shielded Keogh (Campbell) for example – only to back off once the ground work is complete. The inevitable escape attempt, when it finally arrives, is glossed over in a few scenes, and the fate of the principals announced by a voice-over. All in all, while the film has some entertainment value, it's a big disappointment. And for my money any film about British POWs that casts a couple of actors from Charlottesville, Virginia and Dallas, Texas as the lead RAF characters has irreparably compromised itself from the outset.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film. The location, although set in Ireland, was actually filmed mostly at Jurby Airfield on the Isle of Man, which is an old RAF station and in many ways still as shown in the film. The shot of the cottage by the beach at Niarbyl is the same one used as Ned Devines cottage in Waking Ned.