Film Reviews by PV

All about the battle in 1920 to defend Poland against the USSR and so retain its independence. Also references Kiev and Ukraine.

Interesting enough as seen through the eyes of a young soldier, with all the fog of war and confusing loyalties. But it does drag on rather, with endless 1920 battle scenes.

Probably a smash hit in the UK around 2011I think, as stated on the sleeve, due to the Poles in Britain going to see it.

Very dated to my eyes really. I would have given 2 stars for that but it just about makes 3 stars due to some great battle scenes.

Despite some atrocious dubbing, and a lack of subtitles for when actors speak English which would have been a help, this is an action-packed film which educates and entertains. Siege warfare is millennia old, used now in Ukraine and in WWII and throughout history - besieging castles to starve them to submit was an old war method many centuries ago.

The siege of Leningrad was one of the worst ever and lasted over 800 days, 1941 until 1944, as Germans retreated. It was truly horrific and 1.5 million there died of disease, starvation and bombing - almost Putin';s own parents (his mother was pulled from a pile of dead bodies when she moved).

Having visited Leningrad when it was called that, before St Petersburg was restored as its name, I recognised many statues etc. The hell of the situation is seen through the eyes of an 'English' reporter and her female police officer Russian friend who rescues her, the 2 children they hide out with, and her lover Gabriel Byrne. Watch to the very end to discover their fate. This personalises what could have been a structureless story - as sieges are not that cinematic after all. Wavering loyalties on both sides brings home the foggy morality of war.

It could perhaps have been a tad shorter. And English subtitles would have been great.

But 4 stars anyway. Worth a watch.

I knew very little about this or the history of Finland, which pre this involved a civil war in 1918 when the new USSR first tried to take it over - after centuries of Swedish empire rule.

The Soviets invade and lose the Winter War, which is now known as the Finnish Miracle. 105 days of fighting in harsh winter weather.

Very timely with Ukraine now the victim of Russia;'s expansionist ambitions, as Poland was in 1939 too and after World War II.

This movie is from 1989, and includes a helpful starting section with a map and basic history.

It can go on a bit and be repetitive, maybe a bit long - but nowhere as much as recent Hollywood movies or Bond films which last 2 and a half hours.

3.5 stars rounded up.

This is a fascinating 2 part TV drama, 3 hours in all, though a rather Americanised version of 1920s/30s German history.

Great focus is put on the American wife of businessman Ernst Hanfstaenghl, a close friend of Hitler from 1923 until he defected late 1930s, no doubt for a US TV audience. Their son, whose godfather was Adolf Hitler, only died in 2007. That was an angle unknown to me before this TV drama.

Thomas Sangster plays the child Adolf - he later played Paul McCartney in Nowhere Boy.

3.5 stars really and it seems to end rather suddenly too. Perhaps part one is more interesting.

Fascinating to watch together with classy TV documentaries such as Rise of the Nazis, or the ones showing just how sneakily they took power after 1929.

Although it is slightly plodding, this is a film based on the final novel of troubled author Hans Fallada who lived through the Nazi regime in Berlin in the last years of his short life. He was and is well known in Germany.

There are many small stories of bravery and resistance from WWII. I had never heard of this one before. And it started early, in 1940 when Germany were winning the war, so unusual - there was much more resistance in 1942 when Germany started really losing on early 1943 when it lost at Stalingrad - Germany had lost WWII at that point really though it dragged on for over 2 more years in Europe.

Based on the true story of a working-class husband and wife Otto and Elise Hampel who, acting alone, became part of the German Resistance. Fallada's book was one of the first anti-Nazi novels to be published by a German after World War II. However, in real life it was Elise's brother who was killed in 1940, so the novel changed that.

Maybe best watched with 'Sophie Scholl: The Final Days' a 2005 film about resistance by the White Rose movement later in the war, from 1942 when Germany was losing. That movement though was 5 students and 1 university lecturer, and 6 were executed incl Sophie, who maybe gets most attention as she was female.

Anyway, I enjoyed this film and learning about an early resistance to the Nazi regime I had hitherto been unaware of.

Not 100% sure about the main character castings. Hence no 5 stars.

This film makes me want to read the novel.

4 stars

What I liked here is that the viewer is given a choice between dubbing into English - which I hate usually - and original German with subtitles, which I would always choose. Far better than dubbing and and most subs OK, a few small errors but...I I have seen a LOT worse.

I'd much rather watch this than the Hollywood movie with Tom Cruise too - which is bigger budget, noisier etc.

This was fascinating - and I have just watched the main actor here playing Rommel in another German film.

An interesting chapter in German and world history. 3.5 stars rounded up.

This film reminded me of old Twilight Zone episodes, and they probably inspired it.

It also reminded me of Norwegian movie The Bothersome Man, also about a parallel reality where everything is odd and strange. Vivarium is a Danish/Belgium production, I believe. Also reminds me of some Hammer horror films where people cannot escape the area where a big haunted house has trapped them - early 70s. And also other circular films like Looper and more.

I dislike films which suddenly flip into fantasyland esp when no explanation is given, as here. Trying too hard to be profound, but really gimmicky.

On the plus side, the child actor playing the boy is superb. I was much less convinced by the adult version and the estate agents. Why the couple would not notice the weird set up is very unrealistic - so that meant I could not suspend disbelief. People just would not behave like that.

Much of this is all style and no substance - makes no sense really. Overlong at 2 hours and the last part loses any suspense built up - and predictable too, for me.

2 stars

A very timely film showing how united Russia and Soviet Union member The Ukraine were in WWII. The languages are almost the same - as with Croat and Serbian, the big difference is the alphabet used for writing it (Cyrillic for Russian, Serbian; our Latin alphabet for Ukrainian, Croatian etc). I wonder what she and all the loyal Soviet/Ukrainian soldiers would make of the new war in early 2022.

The facts here are distorted with fictitious characters added and the story Hollywoodised and romanticised - too much really, and it seems focused on her as a woman proto-feminist rather than as a soldier - hence Eleanor Roosevelt book-ending the film. Yes, Lyudmila had a son - in 1932 aged 16 in a short-lived first marriage which gave her the Pavlichenko surname. No mention of that. She married again age 25 but her husband was killed in the war. She later struggled with alcoholism and depression and died age 58.

She had 309 confirmed kills as a sniper - impressive for sniper. Most snipers were and are male - excellent spatial-awareness is a must. But she was the exception which proves the rule maybe. She had 187 kills at the siege of Odessa. The USSR fought Romanians (fighting for Germany) there - the latter won. There followed the siege of Sevastopol in Crimea, where she only trained snipers in real life. So fiction is bent to a new convenient reality in this film.

I enjoyed the movie - and interesting to see Woody Guthrie and hear his song about Pavilchenko, who visited the USA to speak and garner support for US troops to open a second front in 1942. Fascinating., I wonder how true it all is. It is true she said these words to US soldiers: "Gentlemen," she said, "I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist invaders by now. Don't you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?"

She also visited the UK in November 1942 - and spoke at Birmingham and Coventry.

Some awful dubbing here and casting Russians/Ukrainians to play American journalists as they have some English is a woeful error.

However, 4 stars.

I enjoyed this - I especially liked the fact it shows Hungary in WWII, a little-known chapter really, including the first portrayal ever that I have seen of their leader Horthy at first dealing with the Nazis and then deposed by them - and the one year rule of the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross party, a puppet regime of the Nazis really.

Fascinating to see that in what is, at times, a nail-bitingly tense drama.

I did know a great many Hungarian Jews were sent to camps and here we see Adolph Eichmann engaged in deportations (he was later caught and hanged by Israel earlty60s of course, kidnapped from Argentina).

As ever, what happened to various Nazis at the time makes interesting reading at the end - the way some were hanged and some got off. And also many Hungarians then fled the Soviet takeover. Not to mention their 1956 invasion.

The slushy ending is very Hollywood (no spoilers) but still, a decent film. 3.5 stars rounded up.

This is a curio piece - made for Czech TV and, to be honest, too padded out and flabby to stretch even to 90 minutes. Would have been better as a one hour (if that) TV drama,.

I have to admit I did not know Czechs and Poles were in north Africa fighting with the Allies in WWII; I did know many Italians were there (the Brits too 300,000 prisoner, and half could not write their names and many did not even have guns) and Italians also fought with the Nazis on the Eastern Front against Russia and a handful even flew planes in the 1940 Battle of Britain - for the Nazis. As many Czechs and Poles flew planes in that battle for the Brits!

Oddly this film is based on Stephen Crane;s late 19th C novel the Red Badge of Courage all about the US Civil War - the theme of courage and redemption come from there.

I liked the non-pc barrack humours etc - no Brit/US film made these days would do that or have an all white all male cats either (one woman is in this, that is it, and she to provide, ahem, 'services'.

An interesting curiosity piece. 2 stars for the film really but 3 stars for highlighting a little known event in WWII history. Maybe watch it with classic 1940s/50s films about Tobruk or the north Africa campaign - the filme Rommel The Desert Fox with James Mason is a classic. As is Ice Cold in Alex.

Not sure about this. For a start, it is a musical - and so will appeal to those who like The Greatest Showman and other new musicals with pleasant-enough but untimately forgettable songs. It should state it's a musical really - it was something of a shock when they started breaking into song on screen (and I fast-forwarded through most of the songs after hearing the first verse, chorus and attempted hook). I did like the fish rap though.

It dates from 2017. A year after the rather brilliant THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS which is also my favourite pandemic movie - even though a fungus not a virus ravages the world there. Maybe Shaun of the Dead is the main influence. Also I feel sure the Matilda musical is an influence here.

Anna and the Apocalypse ticks the feminist boxes, strong female characters saving the world all over the place, males deferring to them. The new cliche trope.

But it's not bad - just all rather cartoon character. I did laugh a couple of times, but many jokes are obvious. Very predictable and maybe too long - would suit maybe an hour special on TV.

2 stars

OK so this is based on a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo. His books are usually based on true stories - but they often too can be a bit preachy lecture, with a great big clunking moral hammer to bash you with. Not hard when you portray Nazis in WWII, mind, to make moral points.

The best thing here is the wonderful mountain scenery. The worst thing is 1) the lack of subtitles - I could barely understand the voiceover and could not understand a lot of dialogue by characters either; 2) how predictable it all is - goodie German and baddie German etc. 3) the ending is glib and pointless (no spoilers).

A very twee children;s film really - should be classified as such. Gentle, rural, nice mountain scenery - not really believable though.

2 stars

This is a slight movie which feels more like a short story, to be honest, adapted from a pulp crime novel, I think.

I saw the great reveal climax (no spoilers) coming a mile off. All I can say is these must be the dimmest mobsters in history not to see it.

All meandering and rambling really, very episodic, confused and confusing. Many things not explained - such as specifically why the main character's brother Leo is being pursued. Or who is in the police.

Watch Breaking Bad instead, from series 1, to see classy 5 star mob/mafia drama.

Anyway it passes the time, so 2.5 stars rounded up.

I rented this solely because I admire Tom Schilling as an actor (brilliant in Generation War when he was 30 playing 20, amazingly).

This is a fabricated biopic about Hitler's early years in Vienna aged 19/20 in 1909. It is not however based on fact. Honestly, so little of this is true - the worry is people will think it is. The idea Adolf Hitler became what he was because he was influenced by the people here is absurd.

And this is absurdist comedy - possibly very theatrical and Hungarian which is why I did not get it at all. It starts well but the last half is almost unbearable to watch.

Watch the 2002 film MAX for a more realistic account of Hitler as a struggling artist in 1918 post WWI which was when Hitler became political - he was not really in 1909. For comedy, rent THE PRODUCERS musical.

Dawn of Evil was adapted from a play by Hungarian playwright and theatre director George Tabori and explores the period 1909 and after when Hitler was a struggling artist in Vienna, Austria.

It gets 2 stars

Somewhere in this expensive flabby mess there is an exciting taught thriller trying to get out. It's an overlong, convoluted, meandering, confused, pc woke mess.

Remi Malek's baddie is so underused, it's a real shame, esp after a superb opening sequence. It's, all so feminised of course, the usual new cliche of the 'strong woman' empowered females trope (and yet the UK services have precisely NO female snipers), typical catty lines aimed at a retired Bond described as old and a wreck, and with one working knee - when Daniel Craig looks GREAT for 52 when this was filmed. The fact is, feminising Bond to be a 'new man' goes against his whole character - it is not him. SO it is hard to suspend disbelief therefore or, frankly, to care what happens at all. Ben Wishaw is great as ever as in everything he is in.

Wonderful location shots (shot in Norway, UK,. Faroe islands, Italy) and set pieces - of course, as these movies are made for an international and esp far east market who demand them. Hints the next Bond will be a black female (007's replacement here). No humour and plenty of girly soppiness esp at the end. Yawn. Give me LIVE AND LET DIE and Roger Moore any day.

AND the worst Bond song in years - utterly forgettable dirge. And the producers seem to know it too - they revive ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD, from a Bond film over 45 years old to add to the score.

3 stars

Jewish Londoner called Monty Norman, still with us age 93, wrote the Bond feem toon, y'know - not John Barry