Rent Cross of Honour (2012)

Four blokes talking in a shed - Cross of Honour review by AS

The sort of tale already told upteen times, and in every case a whole lot better. Cringe-making characterisations, especially of the stiff-upper-lip Brit and his cheeky working-class underling. Mundane dialogue, littered with anachronisms. Lifeless direction does nothing to boost what is essentially a very dull story.

Straightforward, unshowy drama - Cross of Honour review by Alphaville

Two Brit and three Nazi airmen are shot down in Norway’s snowy wilderness and have to learn to live together in a mountain hut, where the bulk of the film takes place. You can predict how their relationship will develop from enmity to shared friendship in order to survive, which takes the edge off the plot. The two Brits are such caricatures (toffee-noised captain and working-class squaddie) that it’s hard not to side with the more well-drawn Nazis. It’s not a bad film, given heft by the setting, but it’s based on a true story and one wishes it was better.

German and English stereotypes stuck in a shed in the snow in Norway in 1940... - Cross of Honour review by PV

This is not a bad film, but it is not a good one either.

The main problem is the script, which has obviously been written by someone Norwegian/Danish and not checked with a native English speaker.

The stereotyped upper class Englishman speaks like a cartoon version of one - I almost expected him to say 'I say' and 'by Jove' and 'Toodle-pip'!; though Rupert Grint's Scouse accent is OK but what he says is not - ANY working class lad like him from the 1920s/30s would have known poverty and used newspaper toilet paper, for example.

This is 1940 when the Nazis slyly invade Norway in April NOT to get Norway's raw materials BUT to enable Norway's ports to be in Nazi hands as during winter that was the only way Germany could get the iron ore from 'neutral' Sweden (which made a fortune from selling Germany that in 2 world wars while 'neutral') during winter when the Swedish ports were closed by ice.

The Nazis are not believable either - this is 1940. Not 1944. Germany had invaded Czechslovakia and Poland and now Norway and soon France, Belgium and Holland - it was on the rise, marching acorss Europe. I very much doubt any German soldiers would have been disloyal and anti-Nazi. Esp re certain book burning.

The acting is decent - and if you ignore the absurd dialogue which is SO bad, the film has enough events and tension to keep breathing - just. The young actor David Kross was excellent in the film about a German footballer goalkeeper in the UK - THE KEEPER.

There is a 1942 film about that invasion of Norway - THE DAY WILL DAWN. Watch that, not this.