Film Reviews by PV

I rented this film because of the main actor which is brilliant in the film GREAT FREEDOM.

This pretentious French film, based on a novel and with loads of voiceovers from that, is just tedious.

I am not sure whether it wanted to say the fascists have taken over NOW in our age, or what. The clumsy clunky attempt to draw an analogy with modern-day racism and refuge issues just does not work.

Annoying and dull.

This film does what many Russian films do.

It is full of patriotism/nationalism, which seems quite deliberate these days, especially as one main character is from Kherson in Ukraine (liberated from Russians on 11/11/22). Was USSR yes, but... Made by nationalistic Russians and nationalistic Russians.

Then the massive overacting - very theatrical, facial expressions with bulging eyes, waving arms etc. Not natural at all. Then the attempts at action movie martial arts type fighting, lots of slow motion footage, lots of explosions so not a cheap film to shoot for sure. Amateurish and old-fashioned.

The main problem here though is lack of character development - too many characters and none one can really feel for, which means when any get attacked or are in danger, as a viewer you don't really care.

Watchable for the explosions. 2 stars

This is a 7 part series - almost 7 hours. It should have been a 3 parter, 4 maximum. Then it might not have been so slow and, frankly, boring. It goes on and on and on - so slow, because it is mainly a soapy family drama with a detective series hidden inside somewhere. Cut all the romantic family issues flab and it would be a decent watch like True Detective first series.

I watched the first DVD - 4 episodes - then the 2nd just 2 weeks later, and had really forgotten much of it. That says it all.

There are WAY too many characters - likes, score of them, Mostly extraneous and nothing to do with the main murder plot. Apeing the Sopranos maybe, but failing. So many boxes ticked too - I bet their had a pc checklist for that!

Maybe it would appeal more to female viewers, what with all the family drama, romantic interest etc.

but the plot relies on wild coincidence, which is the sign of a weak story to be honest - the story does not emerge from the characters, as it does in great drama.

SO slow - I was clock-watching a lot. And I did not really believe in the story or the main character - or many of the characters. I found her annoying and just did not believe she would do what she does. I gets tiresome when any 'strong' woman main character gets heaped with praise - it is just SO 1979 Alien really, Kate Winslet here has one expression - and a faraway worried look no doubt to encourage our sympathy. Sadly, only inspires yawning and eye-rolling in this viewer...

Anyway, OK if you like that sort of thing BUT I shall not be watching any second series.

This is an absolutely brilliant and ground-breaking 1974 documentary featuring home movies mainly taken of Hitler and his Nazi gang plus girlfriend. All the supporting act are here, from Eva Brain to Albert Speer and Himmler and Adolf's doctors.

The film is dubbed as the movie reels were silent - amazing they were found at all, as placed in a warehouse with other stock footage when the US military took possession of them.

Controversial at the time, this collection shows the human side to Hitler and other top Nazis, their human side - with Adolf talking to children and playing with his dog and complaining about Goring or Bormann going on a Boar hunt. It is all shades of grey, not black and white, because that is what life is.

Watch the extras - see a half hour interview with David Puttnam and the director etc who made the film, from 2007 or thereabouts, plus 1973 interview with Albert Speer, whose charm and slyness meant he escaped the noose Nuremburg should have slipped around his guilty neck. A massive 97% SS war criminals went unpunished.

Some other footage here of Germany in 1930s and 40s - some from Triumph of the Will (1935) but some new. These home movies at the 'Eagle's Next' with Hitler are familiar too us now as they have appeared in so many Nazi documentaries since, but this was the first time they had been seen.

This should be essential viewing for all schoolkids too, as should Triumph of the Will and more. Nazis - a Warning from History etc.

This independent German film is based on a novel - and follows a twisting thriller trope, with plenty of comedy too. A bit like UK TV series New Tricks or any other about art forgeries.

It is also an identity swap drama/comedy and original in that, however unbelievable. I doubt this actually happened. Though some Allies spies dressed as Nazis and some Nazis dressed as Allies troops - in the fog of war and invasion.

Best to focus on the drama and comedy, not the details here or the trueness to life - the concentration camp inmates look far too well-fed and healthy, for a start.

A nice documentary on the making on the EXTRAS which is worth a watch - it points out most WWII films about Jews show them being saves. Here the Jew saves himself.

I enjoyed it,. 4 stars.

Amazingly this was made in 1943 when Belgium was still occupied by Germany - from May 10th 1940.

A bit dated but it is nearly 80 years old! It was also a propaganda film really and a thanks to all the Belgians who made it to Britain AND the Belgian people who endured Nazi occupation. Many fought for the Allies including in the Battle of Britain.

I enjoyed it greatly. It is rare to see a film about Belgium in WWII.

One for anyone interested in WWII history.

Great Freedom is a great film. Groundbreaking and illuminating.

It follows a man moved from a concentration camp in 1945, by American army in effect, to prison to complete his sentence for homosexuality - under paragraph 175, not repealed in west Germany until 1968 (not equalised with heterosexual laws until 1994); in 1968,. communist east germany scrapped the law altogether so was more liberal.

he befriends - in all ways - another prisoner, convicted for murder.

The harsh, brutal conditions in the prison through 1940s to late 50s to late 60s are well depicted. It is barely better than any concentration camp. Even in late 1960s.

There also some explicit scenes here which I am surprised got past the censor.

The end is heartbreaking in a way (no spoilers) and shows what prison can do to people.

A tad long and ponderous in parts, hence the 4 stars. But one of the best prison films I have ever seen.

Gosh, what to say about this?

Well it is all very amateurish, a German film with acting speaking English - no doubt to access US horror DVD market.

No CGI - good old-fashioned Halloween mask monster!

Some werewolf non-plot hokum about Nazis BUT as a plus they do give DATES so the years are clear.

Very silly long end credit sequence.

1.5 stars.

Starts well but after the first act it is dreadful AND the inclusion of black GIs is silly, There were none in the segregated US army in WWII - only in medical corps away from the front. Lucky them.

Watch BAND OF BROTHERS to see a decent portrayal of the Battle of the Bulge or the 1965 film with that name. not this dross.

A great film could be made re the US and UK prisoners of war who joined the german army OR those with German heritage who fought for germany, the Free british Corps only ever had 54 members, only 27 at any one time. From hundreds of thousands of PoWs.

1.5 stars rounded up, for the first act

This movie is awful - Canadian, it seems, based in Vancouver.

Truly gross in many ways. Just icky. NO teenage boy would behave like this AND if one sees a woman wrote and directed it - who has previously directed kids' stuff like MY LITTLE PONY - all becomes clear.

Well I am baffled this film gets such high ratings.

For a start, it is all based on a nonsense - WHY is this man obsessed with his deerkin jacket? Never explained. AND THEN the entire film rests on an unlikely coincidence of the main character (an old-looking 44) getting a free camcorder from an old bloke he buys a deerskin jacket off. It is so random it;s like the middle aisle at Lidl! Next time I buy a pair of socks I'll expect a free unicycle then. WHAT NONSENSE!

Life does not have to make sense but films do. Such random coincidences are common in fantasy films of course - why i hate them too.

The first hour is very Gallic shrugging mooching about, with more unlikely random events (a mute boy and an unfortunate hotel receptionist...). The last third is gruesome 'grand guignol' comedy horror WHICH is great fun - though not anticipated anywhere in the first hour.

AND apparently this part of EU France has no police at all - which is amazing and may well explain why some many illegal migrants are always trying to leave lawless France from Calais, coz what with no law and order or police, they must have a hell of a time there...

IF this film had been made in English, I suspect its fans would trash it. Absurd and not funny either.

Anyway, nice mountain scenery in the Pyrenees

This is a very state-funded and supported film, from BBC. BFI etc, developed with them - no doubt as part of its diversity quota system whereby women get such opportunities. Lady Macbeth is another such boxticker film.

What to say about this? well all a slightly confused character study in religious delusion with some CGI horror effects tagged on. Some unnecessary padding with the main character out drinking and meeting men - adds nothing to the film. BUT without nit, the film would last an hour.

Good acting from all concerned - the deluded young woman and esp the old, ill American woman too.

It will very much appeal to the kitchen sink drama brigade. One for Guardian 5 star reviews,.

Set in Scarborough, north-east England, but everyone seems to have southern English accents - it could be Margate,. Baffling.

2.5 stars rounded up

Somewhere in this mess of a movie there is a decent Siegfried Sassoon biopic trying to get out.

The main problem is this: it's 3 films trying to be one. The first is the best and should have been the whole film - how posh privileged Sassoon has his eyes opened by the first World War, where he showed great bravery (at Mametz Wood, where he dragged back several British/Welsh soldiers under fire and miraculously survived without any injury) and then campaigns against the war, so is sent to a clinic for shellshock where he meets Wilfred Sassoon. There. That s a good film.

Unfortunately, there is a second film then which revolves around the love-lives of posh entitled wasters, gay and straight, which is all totally tiresome and beyond boring. Ivor Novello (real name David Davies, Welsh actor/songwriter of slush) gets made the baddie here (he cannot sue coz he is long dead!); Oscar Wilde's loyal friend Robbie Ross features here as an older man but in real life he died in 1918! if you are interested in the lovelives of spoilt, camp, b-tchy, entitled tedious art Deco darlings & posh dropouts who never had to work for a living and never did anything useful, then this bit is for you.

Third, we have a woefully miscast Peter Capaldi playing the older Sassoon. This film shows him living in a suburban semi; in real life he inherited a massive estate from an aunt and lives there,. Siegfried Sassoon's parents were posh and wealthy, father from a super-rich Bagdad Jewish family; mother from an ancient family of sculptors who have served royalty since 14th C. Not council estate stuff then.

The second half of this flabby self-indulgent film - and no surprise it is state-funded by BBC, BFI, Lottery etc - is mind-numbingly tedious. Dates on scenes would help. As would titles on poems (though Sassoon is a middling poet and not a patch on Wilfred Owen).

It is further spoiled by daft colourblind casting - no, Sassoon was not welcomed into the Catholic faith by a black priest and there were NO black/Asian patients being treated for shellshock at the Scottish clinic he was sent to. This attempt to create a fake BAME history is so dishonest and tantamount to fraud. Just wrong.

A shame this is such a disappointment but there are some good WWI films out there. 2 stars.

This is one of those US movies on WWII, which is low-budget, often very Christian (the funding for these films aftern comes from Christian organisations) and VERY gung-ho Americans. It's almost as if the USA had been fighting Germany since September 1939 and not just December 41 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour..

The characterisation is weak, and the unstable character is said to be like that because he had been on an operation with the British!

That and the weak writing make it totally forgettable.

Nice Nazi uniforms though, and lots of shooting.

The sandy beaches are pure Virginia though and look it.

2 stars - just. I always give some credit to low budget films...

I loved this film - esp the first half. The excellent David Schofield plays a disaffected teacher betrayed by the school management after a violent incident - the title F is a grade he gives a student (no spoilers).

He is told by the ambitious female managerialist head played by Ruth Gemmell that it is against school policy to award a FAIL grade - the lowest a student can get is an M for moderation or RM for re-marking or RS for resubmit. This is based on FACT. And the portrayal of that ambitious female manager is horribly accurate portrayal - I have worked with such women in colleges. Never again. The are manager monsters.

Many schools these days - and universities - never fail any student. There is a 98.4% pass rate in A levels and 70%+ uni students get a 1st or 2.1. The word failure if banned at many degree factories too and schools - they say 'deferred success' instead.

So that portrayal is accurate enough. The film then morphs into a slash horror movie in many ways, though the sinister hoods look great. Some scenes reminiscent of Jurassic Park, to be honest - the hoodies are the Velociraptors.

An interesting and fun British film which makes a serious point about disruption and violence in our schools.

4 stars. only because it lagged a tad in the latter half and so much is unexplained or left hanging. The acting is 5 star all round.