Company of Heroes opens with a small unit of WWII soldiers on patrol in a remote region of Belgium in December of 1944. After clearing out a sniper, the unit heads back to base for a supposed easy transport run. On the transport run, they are met head on with a full column of tanks and heavily armed men. Many of their unit is killed, on the way back to base they are stranded behind enemy lines.
The unit soon discovers a top secret German operation, to develop a nuclear super-weapon and the top secret allied plot to capture the leading scientist, and bring him to the US.
Company Of Heroes tries hard to be a great war film, but perhaps the limited budget, and emphasis on flash and firepower, rather than distinct story telling, the production feels rushed. The first 45 minutes contain the bulk of the war action, then the story shifts to the science area of the particle accelerator for a brief moment, than boom, right back to the action.
Company Of Heroes has a few bright spots with the gritty performances of Chad Michael Collins as the young gun sniper and Tom Sizemore as the grizzled old vet, who is busted down in rank to cook. A splash of beauty thrown in with sultry actress Melia Kreiling as Krestrel, who helps the soldiers in the secret weapons area, makes sure this testosterone fest, does not forget the fairer sex.
I am not a WWII buff, so I cannot comment with regards to the historical accuracy of Company Of Heroes, but I can say at least a valient attempt is made to exclude most, I say most, present day colloquialisms. The uniforms looked old and tattered, as they should from long battles. Actually I welcome comments on this.
Sadly though, Company Of Heroes has a few shortfalls. The story should have been fleshed out more. A 100 minute movie seems a bit short, given the subject matter, I would have liked to see more of perspective, from various command points of view and more story detail given to the super-weapon compound.
Problems aside, Company Of Heroes plays out as a decent action/war flick.
Overall I rate Company Of Heroes a definite rent for war buffs. I rate the film a 6 out 10.
don't quit your day job, dan.
ReplyDeleteThis movie unfortunately is definately a bad movie. It lacks of realism, accuracy , and pitty that all clises are used in that. I mean how many times do we have to see a sniper getting killed from a bullet through his skope right to his eye?I counted three times same scene (soldiers walking at night through trees and camera taking them from profil position.). Moreover when u set an ambush or try to avoid a superior enemy force u DONT smoke and u dont try to take cover standing up behind a tree.Especially when the tree is thiner than u.
ReplyDeleteWhat about numbers of soldiers? How many survive the first attack on the truck? It seems like they keep coming from i dont know where cause although some die the number remains almost the same .
How many times do we have to see a cascander walking in flames?
And what about that, the second face on poster has a role of two scenes in the entire movie?
And in the end a cemetary ? REALLY?
Ok i understand the the patern taking known actors from other war movies or series,adding some already used before scenes, using old tricks etc but this is not filmmaking. Its like a greek salat but instead of tomatoes, olives , olive oil, cheese n cuecumbers u have some of brother in arms, saving private ryan n i dont know what.
Pitty n for me rouphly a 3/10
I couldn't agree with you more. I've said the same watching this movie. It was even hard to watch it all the way to the end. All the scenes with the train were awful, as well. 1st - when Germans found that one guy, and now everyone watches how their superior will kill that guy. Search for the others were over, eventho they knew they were on a train to Stuttgart, on which train and on what railroad they'd be going. All the way to the last part with train when they found them. Like one german is opening the doors of the wagon and others are just waiting to be shot. Like 2 platoons of Germans just running to get the bullet.
DeleteGood cameras, and okay story, but awful animations and effects, with such a low realism level its hard to watch. Even worse than Yugoslavian Partisan movies.
2/10 from me
Great movies as far as WWII movies go with a much lower budget than Saving Private Ryan or the thin red line. Weapons very accurate for that time even as far as the mortar being the real thing. Clothing was spot on even counting the civilian euro clothing from that time period. The story definitely needed much more girth. If was to complain about anything I would have to say that if the weapon was atomic there wouldn't have been rubble or bodies at the test site. Overall fun to watch and a decent war buff movie.
ReplyDeletesomething you might have over looked medic was giving cpr....this is 1944... cpr wasnt invented until 1960 ...hmmmm...attention to details..
ReplyDeleteHhaha yes.
DeleteWas surprised also. Don't understand why they put it in the script. It's dumb and it anoying also.
Haha, I was thinking the same when I was looking all those heart masasges in the movie.
DeleteThis may not be the worst war movie ever made but it made a valiant attempt to reach that goal.
ReplyDeleteSupuestamente, la unidad que protagoniza la pelicula es americana, estonces porque portaban rifles britanicos, y el francotirador un rifle aleman?
ReplyDeleteMuy poco realismo en esta peculica, empaña el nombre del juego.
The US troops where carrying a mix of No 4 and SMLE Lee Enfield rifles, standard for the British army of the time, never used by the Americans, ever. Not an M1 Garand or carbine to be seen in this whole pile of dribble. The "US" helmets where 1960's west German army issue. The "German" helmet were a mix of fake shells with no suspension in them, hence all the woolly hats under them to keep them on and some old WW 1 pattern one, way wrong again.
ReplyDeleteI,'ve seen better jobs of kitting peaple out in backyard play fights than this "authentic' crap.
This movie, is about the most inaccurate WWII movie I have ever seen. First thing I notice, is some of them have the newer era chinstraps on their helmets(with buttons, and the strap actually goes ON the chin) some of them have the chinstraps tucked INSIDE their helmets. Second, during the first sniper scene, he says "easy on the trigger, squeeze....don't pull..." then proceeds to take his finger OFF the trigger to yank it back, and manages to get an accurate Saving Private Ryan Eye-shot. In terms of weapon accuracy, they are using Lee Enfield rifles used by the british army, the thompsons they use are a collection of M1928A1 thompsons(used more often in the early years of the war mainly seen in the pacific) and M1's and M1A1's(which were correct) however, they have 20 round box magazines(early WWII) rather than the 30 round magazines which were widely used at the time, (given that it takes place during the battle of the bulge in 1945, the last year of WWII) When they go to take out the mortar crew, I notice after one soldier kills his targets with a thompson, he continues to shake his weapon back and forth after his muzzle flash and firing sounds disappear. When they are attacked by a panzer unit, the men with bazookas fire on enemy infantry with their anti-tank weapons instead of the panzers before being killed, leading to the main characters killing the panzer with ONE shot to the front of the tank(typically the most heavily armored part) and it explodes with a huge hollywood fireball blast. During the night scene where they are trying to get to the train depot: one guy LEAVES the patrol to smoke a cigarette without telling ANYBODY where he is going. A german patrol shows up, and they all proceed to take cover behind trees thinner than them and fidget around and smoke cigarettes trying to stay undetected. Once they decide to move, they provide no covering fire and just run away as a group whilst being shot at. Once the americans do open fire while running away, the german officer stands almost at the position of attention between the bullets and the closest cover(his patrol car) yelling "Shoot them!" at his soldiers as they chase them. I couldn't watch past this point, as this movie is about as accurate as the Call of Duty games.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this movie for what it was: a cheap, WWII movie knockoff, almost in the same style as "Where Eagles Dare." Only this movie didn't have Eastwood and Burton.
ReplyDeleteAs an amatuer WWII enthuasist I was distracted by some very glaring facts, even
though my knowledge is by no means complete:
*Americans are using British rifles;
*the sniper rifle the lead actor is using is really a German Gew 43;
*incidentally, he is later shown using the rifle, and after he shoots, he manually works the bolt to extract the cartridge. The Gew 43 was a semi-auto rifle;
*the German "Tiger" tanks look very pathetic, and the film makers made almost no attempt to disguise the fact that they're really T-43s;
*ther German soldiers are pathetic and stupid. The film makers made no attempt at even trying to flesh out even the main German characters. The only words you hear them say are "Feur!" (Fire!), "Schnell!" (Fast!), and "Los!" (Run!);
*one of the German officers is wearing a Wehrmacht tunic and a Waffen-SS cap;
*the German opera house was lit up with spotlights. By this time in the war, 1944, any building lit up like that would have been targeted by night bombers. By the way, were the Germans even attending operas in 1944?;
*the Russian soldier who appears out of nowhere is frequently called a "Polack" through the movie;
*the Germans were nowhere near to developing the atomic bomb. A better story would have been if they were stealing V-2 weapon secrets;
*the B-17 bombers that bomb the factory at the end of the movie were flying way too low to be considered high altitude bombers. Has anyone seen the movie "Memphis Belle?";
*why would they have gun fight in the train yard? The Germans could have so easily prevented the train from leaving the station to go to Stuttgart;
*the train looks like an American Western train from the 1800's;
*the Battle of the Bulge took place in Belgium. Did the American squad walk all the way to Germany?;
*lighting and smoking cigarettes at night would have instantly caused every German that saw it to shoot at you. No lights at night;
*the explosions are really cheap and are computer generated;
*the MP-40 submachine gun was only used by officers and NCOs in the German army. Everyone else would have been issued K-98 rifles. There is no way they were as plentiful as shown;
*the MP-40 also had only 32 round magazines, not unlimited. I think I only saw someone reload once;
*the actors are walking down a street in Stuttgart speaking in English. I think this would have attracted the attention of every German within earshot.
All in all, the acting was good; effects bad; attention to detail or any respect to an authentic WWII action movie - nonexistant. A book version would be much better.
The above comments sum up this movie pretty well. I had a hard time watching, due to the absolute ridiculous-ness of the whole concept. How do these guys even fall into this mission? It wasn't theirs to begin with... So let's just abandon our original mission to go save the known world, right? We won't tell anyone, in effect going AWOL, and we'll pick up an espionage mission that we only know from piecing together a few documents that we found in a folder...
ReplyDeleteAnd the German officer's service hat was so incredibly
*the German officer's service cap was in such incredibly bad shape... all wrinkled and a poor recreation anyhow.
ReplyDeleteAll comments about authenticity were well observed, but one of the first things that
ReplyDeletecaught my eye was the U.S. Flag on there shoulders, theirs were a built up modern
style not the single layer printed on white cloth style they should have been. Oh and
one more thing.... We only had 48 states in 1944 if I'm not mistaken, not 50 until 59'
Dreadful rubbish
ReplyDeleteAwful awful awful. Terrible acting, dreadful story,
ReplyDeleteThe German tank was actually a Russian T-34, not 43.
ReplyDeleteHere in this movie the German Army...the same one that ruled from western France to almost the gates of Moscow, looks so pathetic in this movie. The soldiers make no effort to take cover and just stand there in plain view and shoot...lthey always outnumber the Americans not just in numbers but firepower and somehow get slaughtered time and again. I actually think this movie would have been better without the battle scenes...
ReplyDelete