arthur_tafero Review of Fortress

Fortress (2012 Video)

More Like a Civil War Re-Enactment Rather Than a Hollywood Film

[3/10 · 12 September 2018]

This is an interesting attempt by a group of young people (from the producers, production crew, and actors) to re-enact B17 bombing raids over Europe; and in particular, Rome. The amatuer acting crew gives it the old college try, along with some painfully obvious air force personnel who have zero acting ability. You can count the people over 30 on one hand in the entire film. One grievous error in the film is the shooting of flak and the introduction of German interceptor planes at the same time. It never happened that way, because you would create excessive damage to your own planes. Poor research there. Also, over 80% of all GIs smoked cigarettes in WW2; this film, except for three or four smoking scenes had the vast majority of soldiers not smoking; highly unlikely. While on the ground entire crews smoked incessantly. More bad research. The special effects were pretty good, but the actors are so raw, that some of the scenes are painful to watch. The music was rather placid as well; it did not build tension very well. A good first try, but no cigar for this turkey.