Breakthrough (1979)

People are voting emotionally.

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

With old line actors Richard Burton and Robert Mitchums this movie is watchable. The best action footage is stock stuff st the very this group of actor worked a lot with Andrew W Mclaughlin - the director quite often and this movie represents nearly the end of the assembly line for these folks who liked to make movies together.At the end of the Mitchem throws away his gun. He does better in The Wind of War without this gun anyhow. A beginning. The budget at Republic Studios in 1979 shows up quite a bit. Not a real important war film and it makes ABC'a made for TV movie the Winds of War look better than this effort in comparison. Because of the stock footage it does compare favorably to the more recently made Valkyrie which is dreadful.If your a fan of these actors it is worth a look. Nothing serious.

I wanted to rate this film higher, I saw it's in the 4's overall now which it really doesn't deserve. But after watching it fully, the ending does justify a lower rank so I'm giving it a 6. It seems to use stock footage from other war films while at the same time has a lot of military hardware filmed so it does have some kind of a budget going for it. Plus it has a cast that merits attention so I cannot see this as a war film that rates it's actual 4 score. With that said. Have you ever noticed that Soviet war films are scored very high on IMDb? I am going to guess that's the same reason why this film ranks so low. The overall vote on the Soviet films are bolstered by Russians and leftist travelers that I am going to say give it an overall plus 1 to their rating. Likewise here. this is a film about taking down Hitler (in a way), so I'm guessing for all those 10 votes the travelers give those so-so Soviet films, there are many pro Nazi types that give this film a 1 rating. As far as the cast goes, casting Mitchum as a 35 year old Colonel when he's in his 60's and not looking very excited about the role is the blaring casting mistake. Burton actually looks older then Mitchum here, like an old man with dementia in most of his scenes and is the second casting mistake. Mitchum would excel later on as a Naval officer and that is a role he can pull off, not here though. BTW what Colonel's (full bird old American ones) go behind enemy lines? That's what a Colonel tells a young Captain to do! And hey get a haircut reflecting 1944 Robert! Jurgens was good but that worn out cap didn't cut it for him being a Prussian General even if it was his WW1 cap. Steiger was good also and realistic and BTW the same age in real life as Burton and in much better looking shape health wise. Michael Parks rounds out the cast I recognize as Mitchum's NCO and Quentin Tarantino says he's the best actor still alive, FYI, so you may just want to watch it for his role which is fairly major. The hardware in the beginning looks close enough for me (probably taken from a Russian or East European war film), and using those post war US tanks for the Western front scenes is much more forgivable then using them as German tanks like in The Battle Of The Bulge! But what was up with using German bomber footage during D Day? Probably HE 111's from the Battle Of Britain film. That was crazy but only one scene so I can laugh about that one. Those anti tank guns are obsolete by 1944 also and not realistic. The film score absolutely sucks too as others have mentioned so in retrospect maybe it's worth it's 4 rating here, but I did stay with it and was overall entertained so I'm sticking to 6. The ending is stupid crazy but overall it was a lot better then many WW2 films from the late 70's so I'm going to give it a 6. Worth watching (once) for us war film buffs.

The Sergeant Steiner character from Cross Of Iron is carried over to this rather indifferently shot film Breakthrough. Steiner is played here by Richard Burton and is a professional soldier who's really getting disgusted by the useless slaughter ordered by his leader who never rose beyond corporal in the last war.In fact Burton finds a kindred spirit in his commanding general Curt Jurgens who is part of the Stauffenberg plan to assassinate Hitler. He sends Burton out on a most secret mission to find some high ranking officers to tell the American high command that the war could cease abruptly. Burton finds Colonel Robert Mitchum for that job.Of course Mitchum's message is received with a natural amount of skepticism from General Rod Steiger. But two days later when the Stauffenberg plot is a royal bust, the Americans don't know what to expect, especially in Steiger's part of the western front in France. Jurgens shoots himself and fanatical Nazi Helmut Griem is in command.Burton, Mitchum, Steiger, and Jurgens look like they've just cashed their paychecks and are just saying the lines to get the film over with. Andrew McLaglen was far better doing westerns for John Wayne back in the day as a director. Griem who was good at playing Nazis, he was great in Voyage Of The Damned is the only one giving a little life to his performance.This story about a separate peace in a part of the French front in World War II is sloppy and indifferent and one the stars did for the money.

This is one of those movies that, for me, is tough to categorize/rate. On the one hand, Breakthrough is nothing more than a poorly made B-grade war movie -- hardly worth watching. On the other hand, it's bad enough to make it worth watching -- provided, of course, you have a soft spot in your heart for terrible movies, you have friends who like terrible movies, and, of course, you have enough alcohol to swill while watching it.What's wrong with it? Well, for starters, the story is fairly ridiculous. Secondly, the score is, for lack of a better term, weird -- it's hardly evocative of Europe in 1944, but more akin to really bad 60s hippie music (or something like that). Burton & Mitchum, both seasoned actors, spend the majority of the film "phoning-in" their lines -- you get the strong impression that this movie was nothing more than "contractual obligation" for the both of them. The other aspect of this film that we thought was really amusing was the number of times a high ranking military officer is out, walking around alone (or with one other person), in the middle of the night, well within the front lines. Who the heck does that!?The other thing we found odd about this movie, is the fact that the production values reek of late 70s / early 80s made-for-TV-movies. Was this movie originally destined for the small screen?So, in the end, I would recommend that you avoid this movie. Unless, of course, you enjoy bad movies, and have friends who enjoy bad movies (it would help if they're also self-styled WWII buffs).Good movie rating: 4/10 Bad movie rating: 6/10