What I didn't like was the typical scene where the flamethrower guy, who is basically carry a tank of gasoline on his back is taken out. This guy is burning everyone else to death but it is some kind of tragedy when it happens to him?

quote:

Originally posted by andronicus:
What I didn't like was the typical scene where the flamethrower guy, who is basically carry a tank of gasoline on his back is taken out. This guy is burning everyone else to death but it is some kind of tragedy when it happens to him?

This happens in EVERY movie with a flame thrower. Stray bullet hits the tank, the tank explodes, and the guy flails as he slowly dies, covered in flames.

Basically, whenever a flamethrower guy shows up, I start waiting for him to asplode.



I liked the movie. It started out sort of slow, and the part with Hugo Weaving going to the hearing to appeal on behalf of his son was painful to watch (odd, as Weaving is such an outstanding actor in every other movie he's ever been in). I never noticed nobody 'pining out' with their Garands, nor did I notice the lack of reloading (I usually am pretty picky about WWII movies). I really enjoyed the fact that they made a decent war movie without any bad language.

quote:

Originally posted by rusbro:
What? Y'all don't like movies where a guy uses a dead man's torso as a bullet-proof shield? WTF!

Only when it's Arnold Schwarzenegger battling Michael Ironside on an escalator.

Saw it last night. It turned out much better than I would have thought from the commercials I had seen.

It was, however, heavy-handed and cliched to say the least. The stylized violence turned Tarantino-esque after a very short time.

The final scene of Doss being lowered down in a stretcher made the voice of Tweak from Southpark ring in my head: "AHHH, the metaphors, man!!"

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
.....
I assume that the narrator in the opening scene is the film's protagonist. It's one thing for a film to pay homage to another, but copycatting is something else. Terence Malick already did this, almost twenty years ago in The Thin Red Line- the philosophical musings in a soft Southern accent, overlaying graphic scenes of battle in slow motion. (One might even count Sissy Spacek's voiceover in Malick's Badlands)

......
In a nutshell, the very small taste I had was cheesy, derivative, and not IMO a reflection of real conditions in that campaign......

I did manage to make it through the film and your 90 seconds of observation pretty much sum up the issues I had with it as well.

As far as copying Malick goes it bothered me as well, although I didn't really attribute it to Malick at the time. It was more of a "oh, this again" reaction. The Thin Red Line is a movie that simply can't be approached in my mind. Even an homage would fall flat in my opinion.

I wish the escarpment had been portrayed more realistically, as well as other issues pointed out in this thread. This is my major complaint with Hollywood when it comes to this type of movie. Some types of films call for and benefit from a deviation from reality and physics. Not so this type of film.

All in all not a great film. IIRC, there are some excerpts at the end of interviews with some who fought along side Doss, as well as with Doss himself. That was nice to see.