Film Reviews by PV

This film is too long as usual with so many modern movies - and like them, feels it has to invent female characters (all 'strong independent women' who tell men they do not need their help multiple times). This gets SO tiresome and is preachy pc 21st C feminism - NOT how women behaved in 1943.

The scriptwriter (female) obviously feels she has to puff this out to make it all about love affairs and petty jealousies of men, and probably invent female characters who never were too for the sake of pc boxticking. Shame. It spoils the film. Watch the FAR superior THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS (1956), a 5 star film, to see the real story, minus the silly romantic subplots and pc girl power posing.

I was not sure whether to give this 3 or 4 stars. In the end it is 3.5 stars rounded up - because the direction/acting is excellent and I loved the later parts of the film set in Spain (Huelva, now famous for strawberries and heavy industry) which I did not know about. Great to see Churchill given respect too, as is right.

And I can even forgive the in-jokes about 'spooks' - the TV series that starred Matthew Macfadyen.

I enjoyed this - it's possibly the best prison-break film I have seen since PAPILLON.

Watch to the end to see what happens to the escapees, and real photos of 2 of them. None of the 3rd and no future story, which makes me wonder if he (French prisoner) was made up by producers. I have no idea.

All filmed in Australia too. Watch the superb music documentary SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN with this and maybe MOFFIE too about conscription of whites into the army.

Of course, this is a complex issue - now South Africa has corrupt elite governments, a surging crime and murder rate, and state racism - against whites. Which is why one third have left that country in the last 30 years.

There are 2 white 'tribes' in SA. The Dutch/Afrikaans Boers who have been there 300 years, often poorer farming folk, deeply religious - they came up with Apartheid and all prison officers here are from that heritage. They cannot leave. Then the more affluent British-heritage whites - they can and many have. It may shock some to realise the whole reason SA is the richest country in Africa is because it had Apartheid and white rule, so avoided the Cold War communism etc and the native tribal disputes/dictators which have ruined so many African states.

This film about warrior queen Boudica (formerly known as Boudicea or Buddug in Welsh which is the nearest to the language these British tribes would have spoken in the 1st Century AD) has about as much connection to reality as Star Trek and is about as historically accurate as Wonder Woman. She was a real warrior queen of the Iceni tribe of modern-day Norfolk, and one tribe which resisted the Romans. Most did deals, in 54-55BC and in AD 43. Those who refused did not end well...

It reminds me of the absurd TV series Britannia which also believed it had to cast a pushy 'strong and independent' female as hero.

It is yet another film ruined by pc metoo issues - though thankfully there is no woke colourblind casting.

I understand it is low budget, but why have characters speaking 21st century minor public school English? And the laughable therapy-speak - eg 'let go of the past' and 'I know you're going through a tough time right now' made me laugh out loud.

There is a nice twist towards the end )no spoilers) which I liked and the male actor excels. The actress playing Boudicca is way too home counties stage school for my liking - there has to be some authenticity! Watch the VIKINGS TV series to see how it can be done (yes that if often fiction but they aim for some authenticity too).

Would have been 1 star, upped to 1.5 because of the nice twist.

There is a great movie yet waiting to be made about the warrior queen Boudicca. This is not it.

This is low-budget stuff, a tale mostly told in flashback - though I was very annoyed at the seemingly random behaviour of the serial killer. WHY is he doing this? Nothing is explained or even hinted at.

Quite confused at times.

Tbh the best thing about this film was the trailer!

I think the best under-the-ice scene in any movie is from the second OMEN film. When Damien is a young teen...

A totally wordless script and one has to admire the courage and audacity of the film-makers to be experimental like that - so hats off to that and an extra star given to the one for the actual film, so 2 stars is fair.

OK so first criticism - though there were women serving in the US military as nurses, they were NOT in combat zones., Most women in the services as nurses were back in the USA or well away from the front lines and danger. Just over 500 US women died serving in US military in WWII. Compared to over 400,000 US soldiers and over 380,000 Brits. I dislike the way the pc demands create fantasy like this to tick boxes.

Supposedly based on a true story BUT that is not true.

But anyway, this film suffers too from very VERDY low budget and VERY talky - no much action for an action film. Lots of sitting around in forests (no doubt in the US or Canada standing in for Belgian-German border).

Very irritating background music throughout too, low volume as on a computer game. And no subtitles.

Mercifully short. 2 stars for trying. Some good stunts and fights, I suppose - but if you wait till the credits you'll see the producers play Germans and also do the stunts!

OK so this film was original in its depiction of German soldiers in WWII who find themselves in a village of ethnic Germans within the Russian borders. There used to be a lot of such colonies of Germans in various countries eg Turkey - now just the graveyards remain. Ditto for the British in many African and Asian lanes and the Caribbean too. The German colonies tend to be in eastern Europe as far as Turkey (And of course lands neighbouring Germany like the Czech Sudetenland from which German-speaking ethnic Germans were expelled at the end of WWII.

I enjoyed this film despite the rather clunking deus ex machina which kicks everything off. No explanation or reason behind it.

Anyway, it all flows from there and is interesting - though not sure how true the story was. A clip at the end (no spoilers) would seem to suggest truth here.

One BIG issue I had was that all the pretty young women (very unrealistic for Russian peasants who in real life would be toothless and sunbeaten so prematurely aged) all looked so similar, I wanted them to wear name tags at times. It was really confusing.

Sometimes I had the same issue with the German soldiers too.

But fascinating as well as tense and watchable. It's a bit like a WWII Agatha Christie wondering who'll be done in next...

I would compare it to excellent Russian/German films like The Occupation and Occupied, also set in such Russian/Ukrainian villages caught in the middle between the Nazis and the Soviet Army in the Second World War. Or the wonderful 5 star GENERATION WAR TV series.

SO 3.5 stars rounded up

I really enjoyed this. To make a 90 minute film which never leaves the inside of a buried coffin (albeit a big one) takes some skill. I was expecting wildlife to appear at some point - and it did!

A dark comedy for me and for anyone who has had nightmares being put on hold on the phone by companies (my record is 90 minutes with BT listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons!!! And charged for that time too).

The phone is the star here. The call with the employer is hilarious and dark - as I found it all. It is satire really.

It is real edge of seat stuff and the ending could go any and either way until the last moment. Tense and fun.

Reminds me of famous 1988 Dutch film 'The Vanishing' (remade in English in 1993), and maybe 1970 film 'And Soon the Darkness', AND an episode of Beck - the buried alive in a coffin trope is not new.

4.5 stars rounded up.

If I'd had to rate this low-budget WWII film halfway through, it would have got 2 stars. It meanders a bit, with no stand-out characters.

But then something happens - it improves!

The violin theme appears and we have some beautiful Christmas scenes with the violin. Then some character development amongst the US and British POWs and their German/Nazi guards.

Watch this film at Christmas - I'd call it a sort-of Christmas movie really.

It all reminds me of a short story I once read called THE PRAGUE VIOLIN too. In that story and this, the violin an its music is arguably the main character.

The ending shows the real Clair Cline who died in 2000 aged 92. This story is, somewhat incredibly true - they really did manage to make a violin in a POW camp. It's now in a Louisiana museum.

Hated the scene with the cat though.

This is from the same writer who gave us the SAINTS AND SOLDIERS films, with a Christian angle. This thankfully lacks any such preachiness.

3.5 stars rounded up

I was going to give this 2 stars as I do respect those who make low budget films. However it is just too bad. And that badness starts with the bad writing and structure.

This just meanders all over the place, no clear 3 act structure, random firefights, and very confused. Dreadful special effects esp the added-on snow!

Watch BAND OF BROTHERS for the same Battle of the Bulge and Ardennes forest attack done well, or watch the 1965 film.

This one is bad. 1 star max.

I think it is made like many of these low budget war films by a religious evangelical Christian group in the USA - they bankroll it.

Ed Wood got money the same way., That does not bode well...

I really enjoyed this film - it is well-made, well-written, well-acted as a group of 5 US GIs are tasked with guarding a mansion which becomes the archetypal haunted house.

And then, well. NO SPOILERS here but let us just say that it is a helluva twist, and one which will divide people. I was not sure about it at first. In fact, I rewound the film a bit before then as I was not sure what I had seen briefly flashed up.

But when I got used to the twist it sort of made sense.

I suppose another version could be made without it, and so then it would be a WWII haunted house horror film only.

A memorable film anyway and well done. I really enjoyed it,. 4 stars.

As another reviewer has stated, the review notes state this is the 1987 film directed by Jack Gold with Rutger Hauer. This DVD is not that one! I have seen that film and this is so much better than that 1987 film.

This is one of the best WWII camp films I have seen, really original, heart-breaking, fascinating. Researching the true story of some names on Wiki or elsewhere is fascinating as they were real - though some characters are made up for the drama, I think, too.

OK so it is a bit o a mess in parts with the editing.

However, overall, this is a must-see.

4.5 stars rounded up

In general, I liked this film, but found 3 things massively annoying:

1) the jarringly lewd, crude narration - the sort of thing posh writers in north London think is arch and funny, but which is neither.

2) the way dialogue is very 21st C middle class British, yet the film is set in late 19th and early 20th C Britain mostly. Some may like that, as stated on an extra MAKING OFF film here; I do not.

3) the usual woke pc colourblind casting. Again, very on tread and fashionable BUT Sir Henry Wood was not a black man - no more than Nelson Mandel was a white man, and no there were no black paperboys - or girl paperboys - in late 19th C London. It matters. Casting is visual - would anyone ever cast whitw actors as Zulu warriors or Indian Maharajahs? Nope. So why is the reverse considered cool?

BUT I loved the cats, and when they are there the film is perfect - the subtitle scenes are hilarious. I also enjoyed the extended 3rd act and the electric/mental illness theme.

I knew a lot about Louis Wain (and cats) before watching this, so also know which parts are true and which are not (the scandal re his marriage was because the governess was 10 years older tan Louis, so not about class). It is somewhat doubtful whether Mr Wain ever even met anyone black or Asian, to the absurd invented 'non-white' character he meets on a train is pure fake wokery. Pity. It is also not really true he 'invented' the keeping of cats as pets. Many had done that, and I could name scores from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries who did (authors etc).

SO 2 stars for the film (it could have been 4 without the above issues), and an extra star for the cats. 3 stars.

This is a superb film - also called "I Am a Teacher / Ya Uchitel". Rare to have a teacher as a hero in a movie, but here it is.

Superb direction in this. The same director of the brilliant BATTLE OF SEVASTOPOL about a female sniper.

Genuinely surprising and shocking - who knew 200,000 Russians joined the Nazis in WWII? Maybe after being captured. And this is Russia, not Ukraine.

Pushkin gets mentioned and featured, in a classroom. Famous Russian poet.

How a small community deals with invasion and rule by both Nazis and Communists is deal with here. As in another great film The Occupation (also called My Name is Sara from 2019) set in Ukraine.

It plays with ideas of loyalty. It also features Russian women transported as slave labour to Germany - 8 million forced labourers were sent to the Great Reich in WWII - it needed workers and so many young men had been recruited into the army to fight the USSR.

I was not expecting much from this but it is one of thr best recent Russian films I have seen and one of the best ever films set in wartime.

Dreadful subtitles in parts and none for credits at end.

4 stars., Maybe 4.5.

A wonderful film from 1956. Back when they could make great film with no preachy woke agenda.

Loosely based on facts. However, stretched. Why they claim the body of a man was Scottish I do not know, In reality he was Welsh, a tramp who had a life of abuse and depression, and poverty - a TV doc on this a few years ago:

The body was identified in 1996 as that of Glyndwr Michael, a Welsh homeless man, and recognised as such by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Some great actors here BUT not Peter Sellers as the DVD sleeve claims - I thought that was odd. Fake news!

Michel Hordern already looking 70 in 1956, a look he had until the 1980s I think!

Loved the story - the British really were brilliant at this sort of thing. British war films from 1950s and 40s and 60s and often 70s were and are wonderful!

I am so glad I watched this before the new movie OPERATION MINCEMEAT - I hope they get the facts of who the dead man was in that, and I sincerely hope they do not woke it up. One reason old films are so great is they bare free of all that.

No subtitles but these were the days when actors actually spoke proper English clearly, did not mumble behind overloud 'background' music. Sigh...

4.5 stars rounded up.

It is such a shame that what could have been a really great modern Ealing comedy is spoilt by the writers pandering to the modern obsession with pc and woke. My eyes were rolling indeed when the cliched racism story butted it - which was so clunky and not based on any facts.

It's all part of the 'oh wasn't Britain awful and racist back then, unlike the woke pc utopia we live in now'. SO self-righteous and smug. EVERY TV drama is like this and most new Hollywood films, It has infected everything.

Also, as per usual, female roles are invented to make female characters more important than they were in the real story. The criminal son's girlfriend did NOt do what she does here in real life at all - that is as purely fictitious as the racism subplot. One wonders of the clerk of the court was female in early 60s too.

So cut that all out what is left is a half-decent film. I very much doubt a man of Kempton Bunton's class and time would have used the F word so much though - there were other words, b-dy, b-gger, d-mn etc which people used. Not the F word. Sloppy.

Helen Mirren is wonderful as the wife with a perfect Geordie accent - though none of it was filmed in Newcastle (Leeds, Bradford and London) and Jim Broadbent too. Glad that authentic casting has not meant actors are no longer allowed to put on accents (at least regional British ones) and y'know., ACT.

The screenplay is cowritten by Richard Bean who is a decent comedy writer for theatre and film, with Made in Dagenham (I prefer this to that) and England People Very Nice.

Some laugh-out-loud funny lines., the deadpan cynicism of the wife. Watch the extras to see the grandson speaking though not the son JAckie himself (a 2012 freedom of information request revealed him as the thief and not the disabled 17 stone 60+ year old Bunton senior).

Another untrue thing is how the painting is given back. In reality, Kempton Bunton had it for 4 years and returned it anonymously via a left-luggage office at Birmingham New Street railway station. He also gave himself up to police 6 weeks lkater. So the trial is 1965 not 1861. BUT I can forgive that sort of editing of the real story. I cannot foprgive the tiresome wokery and pc vandalism here.

3 stars. Could have been 4.