"08/15" is a German movie from 1954, so this one was made the same year Germany became world champion in football for the first time, which means it is already over 60 years old. The director is Paul May and he is also one of the writers who adapted the literary work by Hans Hellmut Kirst for the screen here. Actually Kirst was also one of these. And Kirst and May worked together on two more films from the trilogy of which "08/15" is the first segment really. It is of course a black-and-white film and it features some fairly known names such as Mario Adorf in his very first career performance (of over 200 by now). The main character is played by the legendary Joachim Blacky Fuchsberger and even if most people today know him for his prolific participation in the Edgar Wallace series, then his efforts here should not be neglected. The 1950s were, for Germany and German film as well, the decade of coming to terms with what happened since 1933, or maybe since 1939, and this film can easily be counted as another war-themed work from that era. However, I felt that there was not that much war action in here, but instead the focus was on life in the military, especially with the focus on one particular soldier, but several supporting characters made an impact and there were all kinds of non-military subjects in here too, like romance and also comedy occasionally. Heinz Rühmann could have played this lead character convincingly too I guess. But I would not put the blame on Fuchsberger that the film did not turn out so well. First of all, my personal approach that I never liked war-themed films that much may be partially in the way of me enjoying the movie, but I also found most of the characters completely interchangeable and at some point it just dragged so much and I really lost interest in most of the characters. I also felt that it was not a very realistic watch when it comes to the deeper, more important moments. All in all, I believe the rating here on IMDb is pretty high and it should be lower as this is not a defining film when it comes to the genre at all. I give it a thumbs-down and for as much as I care it could have ended after this first film and the two sequels really should not have been made unless they are considerably better than this one here, which I doubt a lot. Watch something else instead.
Review of 08/15
