WINTER IN WARTIME

War drama
Some dialogue in Dutch and German with English subtitles.
Original title: Oorlogswinter

F.Y.I.
In May 1940 Germany attacked France though the Low Countries. Thus began the occupation of Holland by the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Martijn Lakemeier: 14-year old Michiel van Beusekom
Jess van Driel: his friend Theo
Raymond Thiry: Michiel’s father Jacob, the town mayor
Jamie Campbell Bower: Jack, downed British paratrooper
Yorick van Wageningen: Michiel’s Uncle Ben
Melody Klaver: Michiel’s sister Erica, a nurse

REVIEW
No doubt based on a true story the plight of the Dutch during the occupation created conflict and questionable loyalties even among families. Seen from the perspective of a 14-year-old makes it even more difficult to completely understand the situation.

The unhurried pace allows time to better appreciate the seriousness of the situation and the great attention to detail makes it all that much more believable.

CLASSIFICATION
for some language. This is hardly justified: two, maybe three f-words to me is not sufficiient reason for such a harsh rating. PG would be more appropriate.

LEBANON

War drama
In Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles

F.Y.I.
The day following the establishment of the State of Israel (May 14, 1948) the Middle East Arab nations of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq attacked the newly formed country. The territory being fought over was regarded by the Jewish people as their historical homeland and by the Pan-Arab movement as belonging to the Palestinians. Known by Israelis as the War of Liberation and by the Arabs as the Catastrophe the 1948 Arab-Israel was the first in a series of conflicts between these two warring factions, but not the last.

Founded in 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization became a powerful force among the 300,000 refugees in Lebanon who had been forced out of their homes in what had become Israel. Continual violence near the border between the two countries began in 1968. In July 1981 Israel retaliated with air strikes after the PLO and the Syrian army began shelling northern Israel settlements. Between August 1981 and May 1982 there were more than 200 attacks against Israel targets.

On June 6, 1982 the First Lebanon War broke out when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon to suppress the PLO rocket launchers and bombs. Israeli forces were numerically superior, allowing Israel to maintain both the initiative and an element of surprise. The Syrian Army fielded six divisions and 500 aircraft, while the IDF had eleven tank divisions and twelve infantry brigades, plus 600 aircraft.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Yoav Donat: the gunner and newest recruit Shmulik
Itay Tiran: the tank commander Assi
Oshri Cohen: the gun loader Hertzel
Michael Moshonov: the driver Yigal
Zohar Strauss: platoon commnder Major Jamil
Dudu Tassi: a Syrian POW

REVIEW
This film is not for everyone: during the screening I attended at least four couples could take no more so they left. The horror of the First Lebanon War as seen through through a periscope gun sight of a tank heading into Lebanon is unsettling.

Sound design makes it all too real what with the roar of the engine, the clanking of the treads, the metallic thunk of the tank’s turret as it comes to a stop. The tension at times is almost too much and for many there is a great sense of relief when the end credits finally appear.

CLASSIFICATION
for disturbing bloody war violence, language including sexual references and some nudity.

THE ARMY OF CRIME

War drama
Original title: L’Armée du crime

BACKGROUND
In June 1940 German forces outflanked the Maginot Line and with their Italian allies overcame the French forces offering little resistance. On June 25 an armistice was signed between France and Germany. The terms of the agreement divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones, with a rigid line of demarcation between them. The Germans would directly control three-fifths of the country, an area that included northern and western France and the entire Atlantic coast. The remaining section of the country would be administered by the French government at Vichy under Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain.

Other provisions of the armistice included the surrender to the Germans of all Jews living in France. The French Army was to be disbanded except for a force of 100,000 men to maintain domestic order. The 1.5 million French soldiers captured by the Germans were to remain prisoners of war. The French government also agreed to stop members of its armed forces from leaving the country and instructed its citizens not to fight against the Germans.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Virginie Ledoyen: Mélinée
Simon Abkarian: Missak Manouchian her husband and leader of the group
Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet: the team’s explosives expert Thomas Elek
Ariane Ascaride: Tomas’ mother Madame Elek
Robinson Stévenin: another member of the group Marcel Rayman
Léoplod Szabatura: his younger 14-year-old brother Simon
Lola Naymark: Monique Stern, the sole female in the group
Yann Trégouet: Nazi collaborator Commissaire David
Jean-Pierre Darroussin: another collaborator Inspecteur Pujol

REVIEW
This film about the Parisian-based branch of the French Resistance (the so-called Army of Resistance but not by the Nazis and their collaborators) never really gets going.

Each new recruit gets to tell “their story” seeming compelled for some obscure reason having to justify their becoming a member of the gang. This lack of focus, devoting so much time exploring the motives of the twenty-one in the group serves no useful purpose except to make the story convoluted, confusing and overlong at 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Instead of action, we get flashbacks and a lot of words with surprising little tension despite what they are up to.

CLASSIFICATION
for brief nudity and one particularly gruesome torture scene.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
Prior to the repercussions following the July 20 attempt at Hitler’s life, a Nazi army officer saluted with the right hand palm facing forwards and the fingers almost touching the eye. When his subordinate approaches the commandant he mistakenly gives him the naval salute, with palm of the hand facing downward.

P.S.
Yid is a derogatory slang word for a Jew.

P.S.S.
Although generally regarded as war heroes fighting a losing battle, most of the population just wanted to survive the war and disliked the résistants, who provoked dangerous and deadly German retaliation.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

War action/drama
Portions in German or French with English subtitles

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Christoph Waltz: Colonel Hans Landa of the Waffen-SS
Denis Menochet: French dairy farmer Perrier LaPadite
Brad Pitt: U.S. Army Lt. Aldo Raine, commanding officer First Special Service Force
Eli Roth: Sgt. Donny Donowitz, one of the squad
Mélanie Laurent: Emmanuelle Mimieux, owner of a Parisian cinema
Daniel Brühl: German sharpshooter Private Frederick Zoller
Michael Fassbender: British Army Lt. Archie Hicox
Diane Kruger: German movie star Bridget von Hammersmark
Alexander Fehling: German Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki
August Diehl: SS Major Deiter Hellstrom
Jacky Ido: Emmanuelle’s assistant Marcel

REVIEW
“Once upon a time ... in Nazi-occupied France,” the title card informs us so right away we know that what follows may not be consistent with fact. What we get instead is a fast paced, exciting, action adventure war movie. Told in five chapters at times often utilising the spaghetti-Western technique(especially the music) including some very clever dialogue.

The performances are uniformly good (although Waltz’s is the best), the costumes and cinematography top notch.

One word of caution: there are quite a few grisly scenes that may require you to avert your eyes. Generally these can be anticipated but some will catch even the wary off guard.

Although at two hours and 35 minutes it is longer than most films, the time passes so quickly I was surprised when the end credits began to roll. I was not surprised with the applause.

CLASSIFICATION
for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality (very brief: about 3 seconds worth)

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
• Moving at a pretty good speed the two motorcycles and car approaching the farm house would travel much farther than they do during the cutaways to LaPadite and his daughters.
• Col. Hans Landa says the Bubonic Plague was caused by rats. This infection of the lymphatic system resulted from the bite of an infected flea, not from its host.
• Colonel Landa fills his pen from the small ink well which remains in place at first in bright light, then in shadow and back again to bright light.
• Although we hear the ticking throughout Col. Landa’s visit, the hands of the clock remain stuck at 11:40.
• The card Major Hellstrom sticks on his forehead changes positions even though he doesn’t touch it: sometimes it’s vertical or at a slant at eyebrow level and other times it’s part way down the bridge of his nose.

THE HURT LOCKER

War drama

F.Y.I.
Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) soldiers are the Army's preeminent tactical and technical explosives experts. They are properly trained and equipped to attack, defeat, and exploit unexploded ordnance (UXO), improvised explosive devices (IED), chemical, biological, and nuclear ordnance and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Guy Pearce: Squad Leader of Bravo Company, Sergeant Matt Thompson
Anthony Mackie: Sergeant J.T. Sanborn, head of the support team
Brian Geraghty: Specialist Owen Eldridge
Jeremy Renner: Staff Sergeant William James
Christopher Sayegh: "Beckham"
David Morse: Colonel Reed

REVIEW
It soon becomes apparent that this is a well-acted suspenseful movie with sequences of considerable tension. Frequently there is a palpable sense of foreboding so don’t go to see it expecting a relaxed feet-up experience: it is anything but.

The effective use of a hand-held camera lends itself to capturing the realistic action scenes. In fact all of the camera work is outstanding and unlike most films it tells the story rather than relying on the narrative to do so. How refreshing.

The film does not glorify war; indeed there is no political agenda at all. Nor are there any comic book heroes, just the portrayal of real people doing a dangerous job.

Excellent editing keeps things moving and great attention to detail makes it all too real. The director has been careful to not dwell on the gory aspect of war but the squeamish like me will have to avert their eyes about half way through as Sgts. James and Sanborn check out a suspicious building.

CLASSIFICATION
for war violence and language.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
• At the beginning of the film, a title card indicates that these events took place in 2004. Seeing someone with a video camera, Sanborn jokingly suggests that it will soon be on YouTube. Trouble is, that website did not come into existence until 2005.
• Specialist Eldridge is playing on an Xbox 360 when Colonel Cambridge comes to see him. This video game console by Microsoft only came on the market in 2005.

P.S.
The running time is a whopping 2 hours and 7 minutes. But in my opinion, not a second more than necessary.

DEFIANCE

War drama
Based on a true story
Some dialogue in Russian and Polish with English subtitles.

BACKGROUND
On August 23, 1939 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. On September 1, 1939 the Germans invaded Poland from the west and two weeks later the Red Army invaded from the east. The Soviet government annexed the territory and declared that the 13 million Polish living there were now Soviet citizens of the newly expanded Belorussia.

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union that commenced on June 22, 1941. Over 4 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR including newly occupied territories along a 1,800 mile front. Within days the 2nd Panzer group met its principal objective, the taking of Minsk, the capital city of Belorussia. The Nazis immediately implemented their genocidal policies.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Liev Schreiber: Alexander Zisel "Zus” Bielski
Jamie Bell: his younger brother Asael
Daniel Craig: their older brother 35-year-old Tuvia
Mia Wasikowska: one of the refugees 20-something-year-old Chaya
Alexa Davalos: Lilka, another camp refugee

REVIEW
By choosing a dramatic beginning rather than a more prosaic approach it takes some time to figure out what is going on unless you are very familiar with World War II history (or get to read the Background notes above). A brief on-screen one-liner indicating the name of the forest area is totally inadequate. Unless it is a well-known historical event the producers need to set the scene, to give us the big picture so we can then appreciate what is going on.

The second problem is a question of running time: it does not require 2 hours and 17 minutes to tell this story. A big chunk of time is spent showing the repetitive process of having to relocate from one area to another, setting up a new camp, getting settled in then starting the process over. Once is enough.

It’s too bad because it is a story worth telling. The acting is uniformly excellent and the overall look of the movie convincing enough.

CLASSIFICATION
for violence and brief language.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
• To deal with the outbreak of typhus a small group sets out to find some Ampicillin. Trouble is this drug was not developed until 1961, some 20 years after these events took place.
• As Tuvia and Isaac emerge from the forest the turret of the German tank begins turning towards them. After a brief shot of their reaction the scene shifts again to the tank only to show that the turret has reverted to the starting position and once more begins to traverse in the direction of its target.

VALKYRIE

Wartime drama
Based on a true story

F.Y.I.
Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. A decorated veteran of World War I, he joined the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the Nazi Party, in 1920 and soon became its leader. Following a failed coup he was instrumental in organizing, he wrote Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”) while in prison. In 1933 he was named chancellor and quickly established a totalitarian dictatorship. As the Führer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces he ordered the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the outbreak of World War II. His favourite composer was Richard Wagner who wrote the opera Die Walküre. The most popular piece, the Ride of the Valkyries, is the prelude to Act III.

Hilter conceived the plan named after this opera, called Operation Valkyrie, to have a reserve army that was held back from the front to defend Berlin and himself in case of an Allied assault on the capital.

The largest component of the German armed forces during World War II was the regular army (the Wehrmacht) of 15 million men in three branches: the land forces (Herr), the Navy (Kriegsmarine) and the Air Force (Luftwaffe). Being a member of the Nazi party was not a prerequisite and there were many who found some aspects of the ideology (such as the Final Solution) repugnant.
In 1925 Adolf Hitler formed his own personal bodyguard called the Schutzstaffel (SS) with Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler as its leader. At the outbreak of World War II a combat arm was formed as the Waffen-SS. This all-volunteer army of 600,000 in black uniforms was considered German’s elite land based fighting force. All members of the SS endorsed the Nazi ideology.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Tom Cruise: Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg with the 10th Panzer Division
Kenneth Branagh: Major General Henning von Tresckow, Chief of Staff: Army Group Center
Bill Nighy: General Friedrich Olbricht, Chief of the General Army Office
Terence Stamp: former Colonel General Ludwig Beck
Tom Wilkinson: General Friedrich Fromm, Commander in Chief of the Replacement Army
Eddie Izzard : General Fellgiebe, Communications Officer at the Wolf’s Lair compound

REVIEW
With all around solid performances and great attention to detail, the recounting of an attempt on Hitler’s life is riveting stuff. Although it runs almost two hours, it needs all of that time to recreate the situation and provide enough information so we can understand what was going on.

For some viewers it will be a story retold but to many it will be an eye-opener to learn that not all Germans were bad guys during World War II.

CLASSIFICATION
for violence and brief strong language (translation: one instance of the f-word).

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS

War drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Asa Butterfield: 8-year-old Bruno
Vera Farmiga: his mother
David Thewlis: his father, a high ranking Nazi
Amber Beattie: Bruno’s 12-year-old sister Gretel
Sheila Hancock: Bruno’s grandmother
Richard Johnson: his grandfather
Rupert Friend: Lieutenant Karl Kotler
David Hayman: Pavel, the house servant
Jack Scanlon: Shmuel, the boy in the striped pajamas

REVIEW
Seen from the perspective of a naive young boy, the Holocaust is a much different historical event. Once you get over the fact that they speak English rather than German, the story unfolds at a rather measured pace.

There are really good performances from both young lads and Bruno’s mother in particular. Beautiful cinematography and attention to detail add to the visual experience.

CLASSIFICATION
for mature thematic material.

STOP-LOSS

War drama

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Ryan Phillippe: squad leader Staff Sergeant Brandon King
Channing Tatum: his best friend Sergeant Steve Shriver
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Pfc. Tommy Burgess
Abbie Cornish: Steve's girlfriend Michelle
Timothy Olyphant: Commanding Officer Lt. Col. Boot Miller

REVIEW
All anti-war movies invariably show the impact military confrontation has on the individuals involved including injury, death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the like. This film deals with one other thing, some of the policies of the United States armed forces that are not that well publicised.

The acting is generally quite good; the pacing fine but some editing is in order as it is a tad too long. Although it is expected some brawling will take place the fight following the service somehow does not ring true.

CLASSIFICATION
for graphic violence and pervasive strong language.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
 From personal experience (as victim not the “perp”) when an automobile side window is smashed it shatters completely rather than just create a perfectly round hole.
 When King gets in the car, although he didn’t touch it, the window has got its act together and is now almost completely gone.
 King gets a pretty bad gash above his left eye with the edges of the cut rough and irregular. Rather than get stitches he applies a butterfly bandage. As an experienced soldier he would know that these are used for a small cut that tends to gape a bit. The correct bandage would be Steri-Strips wound closure tapes.
 In any event the two bandages have a mind of their own. Sometimes the gap between them at the bottom is no more than a sixteenth of an inch, other times they are almost half an inch apart.
 And the wound itself moves about. It arches sometimes to the edge of his eyebrow but more often it’s a good half-inch above.

LIONS FOR LAMBS

• 
  
  
  War drama
  
  PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
  Meryl Streep: cable television journalist Janine Roth
  Tom Cruise: Republican Senator Jasper Irving
  Robert Redford: political science professor Dr. Stephen “Doc” Malley
  Andrew Garfield: Todd Hayes, one of his gifted students
  Michael Peña: Ernest Rodriguez, recently enlisted soldier
  Derek Luke: his buddy Arian Finch
  
  REVIEW
  A well structured anti-war film seen from three perspectives: that of a Senator, as seen by soldiers engaged in fighting the enemy and viewed by the intelligentsia. However, the latter only serves to muddy the waters (except for one brief flashback) and it really just showcases Redford’s acting abilities. But it’s not needed.
  
  Another thing not needed is the static approach taken with the Senator and also with the professor. In both cases, two cameras are plunked down and the shots simply flip-flop back and forth so we can see the speaker. The cameras hardly move so it makes for a monotonous visual experience. The action shots in Afghanistan aren’t much better.
  
  The acting is fine with only Meryl Streep coming across as making any real effort. Although there are a lot of words, thankfully the movie is fairly short so we’re not totally overwhelmed.
  
  CLASSIFICATION
  for some war violence and language.
  
  FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
   The right drawstring on Todd’s hoodie has a mind of its own: a single thread hanging off the end comes and goes between shots.
  
   So do Doc’s glasses. They simply will not stay put, moving about on his desk pretty much at random.
  
  P.S.
  The name of the film is derived from Alexander the Great’s proclamation,
  “I am never afraid of an army of Lions led into battle by a Lamb”