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Reviews
Greyhound (2020)
Re writing history again
The CGI was a bit obvious. Also the idea that U Boats actively hunted destroyers, engaged them in broadsides or taunted them over the radio is just ludicrous. U Boat crews were scared of destroyers and tried to stay well away from them. Destroyers could out class them in every respect. Convoys were well spread out and the U Boats picked off stragglers. As radar improved it became a suicide mission. You'd think after 80 years Hollywood would stop painting all Germans as fanatics.
Unbroken (2014)
After almost 80 years still a unipolar view of Japanese
I thought it was overall a good movie with a fairly accurate portrayal of the history. I have not read the book and was more interested in the POW story, which is an interest of mine.
One thing that often comes out of POW stories is the intensely personal experience without any context given to the enemy. Most of the guards in these camps were either Korean, Taiwanese or, Japanese rejects including American born Japanese who weren't trusted. These Nisei often had a chip on their shoulder because of the discrimination they experienced. The non Japanese guards were also looked down on and got slapped around quite a bit.
Slapping subordinates was part of Japanese military discipline and so they didn't see anything wrong with doing it to prisoners. If the prisoners didn't take it the guard lost face and the situation escalated.
There actually were plenty of individual acts of humanity and kindness from guards which never seems to make it to film. The casualty rates among POWs were brutal, so overall it is not wrong to portray the camps as nasty inhumane places. Many of the deaths were due to malnutrition. Again it must be remembered that the Japanese were reduced to boiling grass towards the end - starvation of the civilian population was a war tactic caused by bombing and sinking of shipping.
Finally, the movie does acknowledge towards the end the Tokyo fire bombings. But the scale is played way down. 200,000 civilians burned to death on the night of 9th March 1945 alone. By American airmen. This is the context.
Our World War (2014)
Well produced but too revisionist
I enjoyed the series as entertainment but became too irritated by the historical inaccuracy. Not so much of the war itself but of the social relationships between the officers and their men. In episode one they portray the Australian officer as a bolshie individualist - some of his men might have been - but Australian officers were schooled in exactly the same way as their English counterparts and had attitudes to match.
There is no way that officers would have taken the lip offered by their men as shown in the series. Such men would have been tied to artillery wheels for their impertinence. Nurses were given the rank of lieutenant and would not have fraternized openly with other-ranks - although there would have been some secretive liaisons behind the matron's back for sure. Capital punishment courts martial was a formal procedure and not awarded in the field as portrayed in episode 2. The Northern Irish army chaplain would not have taken kindly to being addressed in the manner of a Catholic Priest. Not on the Somme. And as a major he would not have accepted back-chat from a private either. *As a small side note on this, the Ulster volunteer contingent had actually named a part of the front line the Pope's Nose, so as to encourage themselves in the assault.
And the private with the Mohican helmet? in 1916? are you serious? He would have been up on a charge for not wearing his regulation helmet straight.
As for the Germans marching towards the bridge in formation order. Argghh. I can understand them being ambushed whilst on the march - and I think this is what actually happened - they were caught in a railway cutting or such like.
So no. Not brilliant. Entertaining, yes. Maybe even a little sinister if it is insinuating lost values.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
Media Hype
The build up to this movie reminded me of the media hype surrounding Jurassic Park (1993). I was wondering when they would try it again. I went to see it anyway because it was getting rave reviews from everywhere else.
This movie is all "car" chases, explosions and fights. I can only suppose that it's a trailer for a soon to be released XBox game.
There was no attempt to engage the intellect at any stage. Even the special effects looked dated. This is one science fiction movie that lacks imagination.
It's scary that marketing can make a movie look so attractive when it is just an empty shell.
Ultimate Force: Never Go Back (2005)
setting and enemy characters too unrealistic
This episode was supposed to be set on a farm in Zimbabwe. It borrows from the vague understanding that the Zimbabwe 5th Brigade committed atrocities in Matabeleland some time in 1984 and that many White farmers were violently evicted from their farms about 20 years later. But the whole thing is just a cliché. You have an Idi Amin looking officer (wrong country) using wrong vehicles, wrong weapons, wrong uniforms, wrong terrain and wrong village scenes.
Most of the background looks like the English countryside except for a few Venda dwellings (South Africa) that were used in some scenes. I suppose they were mock ups, but again, wrong culture.
The wooden dialogue was equally cliché and the local 'whites' are taught a lesson on how they should behave by post colonial British squaddies. That is, its OK for a white woman to kiss a black man. (A considerable number of Zimbabwe citizens are of mixed heritage - how did that happen?) The scene where the farmer taunts the drunken tsotsi who is holding a knife within swiping range is just silly.
Oh, and the Botswana-Matabeleland border is flat. I know this is fiction, but it is pure fiction. Couldn't they have walked down to Luton and asked a local?
'71 (2014)
Brilliant portrayal of the Troubles in Northern Ireland
I have had first hand experience of the Troubles and I must say this movie was exceptionally realistic. The riot scenes were spot on, and many of the scenarios did actually happen (though not in one night). The brutal execution of the soldier at the edges of a riot as depicted in the film actually happened (in 1986 I believe) but the second soldier did not escape in the real event. There were many own goal bombs just as shown in the plot and we now know that individual army officers took on amateur special operations roles and often made a mess of things (Cpt Nairac).
There was lots of understated dialog which probably those unfamiliar with the history and culture will miss e.g. The class tension between the Sandhurst educated officer and his men - the fact that the man who assisted the soldier in Divis was an ex soldier, the split loyalties, the compassion of ordinary people, the lack of hate in the young gunman - the military hearing with foregone conclusion - the Jamaican corporal - so many subtleties in this film shone through.
Two small anachronisms which I spotted (which in no way takes away from the film's brilliance) was the fact that the dead soldier was left alone until evening. This would not have happened. The protocol among the Catholic community of the time would have been to inform the local priest and he would have called the RUC barracks and told them. The place would then have been saturated with at least a battalion - not the couple of squads you see turning up. The second thing was Guinness being served in a Loyalist pub. Yes, even the drinks were a sectarian marker.