Search - Brother's War on DVD

Valiant freshman attempt, painful in every way.

Steve Kuehl | Ben Lomond, CA | 05/25/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"A story of Russian and German soldiers fighting on the Polish front, Spring 1945.



Let's get the laundry list out of the way. Average to horrible acting, a few pointless story lines, shaky cam style that ruins every battle scene, a music score that wrecks every other scene, multitudes of unfocused shots, a 5.1 sound that is mixed almost entirely wrong, rudimentary CGI, really fake hand to hand, artillery and high caliber rifles that had no recoil, and so on.



Now the good. Got to see some nice footage of nearby California (subbed for Poland), got to see my favorite mutant biker from Weird Science play a Russian, and that covers it. It had some emotional moments to it, and I give them props for showing multi-national cooperation in times of escaping Russian bad guys (German, Brit and whatever the gal was trying to be).



Special features: A multi-page screen text about the Freemasons. Putting aside the bad grammar and poor spelling, it contained some sad facts about their organization during the war. Also included is a nine-minute making-of showing the production team and extras doing their thing. Has some informative material on the props and rehearsals.



I give this two stars for the film and extras. I also noticed the few high rating reviews out there are from cast members, which I understand."

Worst movie ever

Adam Douglas | 03/02/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Pros

- Everyone thinking about making a movie should watch this to learn what not to do.



Cons

Acting

- Horrible, actors appear to have to be reminded when to say their lines, high school project quality.



Camera work

- Most scenes are out of focus, cameras move and pan when they shouldn't and don't when they should, shaky almost every scene, composition and headroom is always wrong, horrible headroom in every scene, all scenes have horrible camera angles. The camera lingers way too long after every scene. Don't think they used a stationary camera the entire movie.



Fighting scenes

- First fight scene shows soldiers standing and walking back and forth in the trenches without helmets. Fake, cheesy explosions and gun shots, soldier shooting pistol moves hand forward and back like a ten year old, hand to hand combat is horrible, guns have no recoil, gun shot wounds are never present in clothing. Cameras are always zoomed in too far to hide the horrible acting.



Music

- Climactic the entire movie. Two soldiers walking down the road and they have full battle music blasting. Makes no sense. Music is all wrong.



There's so much more to write but I'm going to put in Band of Brothers and watch a good war movie. I'm upset I used a free Redbox rental on this movie."

Retired Army Guy

Jeffrey A. Hennes | 07/26/2009

(1 out of 5 stars)

"The DVD cover for this movie, the one for my movie rental is different that the one shown here, is awesome and the whole reason I chose this movie. The DVD cover is the best thing about this movie. It's terrible in everyway. I love the accents, French, British, American and that's just the over actors playing the Germans. It's cliche, the writing is bad, the actors are bad. The plot is silly. Just don't bother."

In a word, terrible

ProfPaul | Ohio | 02/13/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I can only guess that this film is made to glorify the Masonic Order. Otherwise it is an inaccurate mess. The Germans are good, the Russians are evil, the Brit is plucky. The Polish nurse has OCD and can only think about helping wounded Germans. A characteristically inadequate backstory does not indicate she is a collaborator, which leaves the viewer wondering how she developed such complete amnesia about the utter destruction of her country at the hands of the occupying Nazis.

100 minutes of your life you'll wish you'd spent watching a better war film, which means almost any one."