Brother's War (2009)

Well Deserved Praise

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

I read the reviews after hiring this movie and decided not to even bother watching it. However I was doing some other work on my PC and put the movie on. I was surprised to find the movie to be interesting with a good story and the character of the German Captain especially was interesting and well acted. The story of the dangers of the Russians - Soviet Union - to the world is a story that needs to be told and retold. There were some poor special effects at times including trees not showing bullet damage when being shot at but ignore the minor errors caused by low budget movies relying on CGI effects and missing some of the realism but concentrate on the story and characters which are quite decent. This movie is not a dud at all and is an above average movie. I think that most viewers, both male and female, can enjoy an interesting story about a group of different characters coming together to escape from evil and to tell the truth about what a totalitarian society was doing. The movie showed both the Nazis and the Russians to be evil - a very real truth that was ignored by Western Governments at the time. I have now added this movie to my 7,500 movie collection and given it 4 stars out of 5..

I have seen this movie twice! Just felt i had to start on a positive note since most of the reviews are bad ones;) This movie is a cheap production. Thats a fact. In many of the scenes I get the feeling that I'm watching a bunch of ww2 buff's that play war. but then the movie also has some decent battle scenes considering the budget. I haven't seen any major errors in Equipment (yes there might be some wrong tanks and a American flag from the fifties). however all the medals and uniforms are correct. the Russian cannon and handguns being used by the Germans are not prop-fails, they are very realistic as German soldiers at that time used everything they could to keep the Russians away. I have read some books written by Soldiers on the eastern front and the tactics being used are also relatively realistic.(some of them, indeed there are mistakes) There was a complaint that the Germans yelled panzer when the tanks appeared. That is exactly what they would have said. It IS the German word for tank. Or maybe the Germans built the pak.40(antitank cannon4.40) to take out their own tanks?;) Also, don't complain that the Russian are portrayed as subhuman assholes, most of the Hollywood movies I have seen does the same thing. Russians are off course just like everyone else but it is just natural that the Grunts of the red army looked a little ugly and weird. They had been at war for a long time, fighting a very resilient enemy.Now i don't like Nazis but I have a deep respect for the common Whermacht soldier. many of them where forced to war and in the end, they just fought for their own lives. even the SS wasn't all bad, many of them simply needed a job in the 30's or joined up to fight communism. The German soldier was just like every soldier in a major war. Afraid. Few of them where politically active and most companies would get a political officer that all the soldiers hated. most of us know that it is worse to have a bad boss than to work in his competition, so lets give the common German soldier of ww2 a break:)I didn't read all the reviews, so maybe all this have been said before. I don't care. I like this movie.just get past the fact that it is far below the budget of most war films, and one might find that the movie is good. There are times when the story feels choppy, but again it has a very low budget so I suppose parts could have been cut.I'll give it a 6 out of 10. could have been much better, but all in all, it's cool.

Overall I have to agree that as a movie with so much entertainment and potential greatness suggested by the cover this was a let down of sorts.The production reminded me more of a docudrama informative but that even failed to make me believe any potential revelations being told.I feel that the main nut of the story (BROTHERS) was the telling of a deeper linking of minds of the Brotherhood in the middle of a terrible war. Moments of this were shown but so little it might well have been missed.Too many interesting tit bits got bogged down in this telling which might have been better suited to being 'televised' as a mini series with each piece of this story being given its own airing.We saw examples of the baser sides of the German and Russian military machine but at the end we see how the US soldier is obedient when our fleeing heroes are caught in a crossfire situation which would surely have resulted in their accidental 'execution'If anything we are invited to believe in the sheer doggedness of the severely wounded LOYAL Russian but EVIL Colonel on the trail of a potentially very sensitive leak which could affect the post war settlements. The nit picking. Panzer is Tank so really if we were using English as our base language the dialogue would have used the word TANK not Panzer. Both are generic names. Think 'Panzergrenadier' as this is a supporting infantryman of an armoured unit. I don't think we have an equivalent job description as such in the US or GB.Usage of each others weapons. Tommy guns were a popular pick up item. The German Mauser or browning pistol also prized. Battle reenactment possible only by the use of lovingly restored vehicles and beggars cant be choosers.I don't see how the music grabbed anyones attention as it was at times too much and too loud and pointless reminding me of those afternoon regurgitated American drama series with mostly only upper body camera work and long dialogues telling our story with so very little action of any kind including facial movements.This story also mentioned the word brother quite often before the meeting of the two masons.If there was a story of some truths here I am sure it was written in a different way so the fault would lie with the translation to screen.Yes stereotypical villains to point of almost comedy, and the on off use of accents to suggest language (I wasn't annoyed by the British accent it took Hugh Daly 38 years to cultivate this and he still spends time in the UK to keep up to date with the lingo).The last laugh was at the end when our German survivor managed to have an interview with did no one notice ?? Bernard Law ---------- fill in the last name and good o'l Ike themselves. Oh the artistic license. This is who our dying Brit Parachutist Major wanted his vital information to passed on to.The activities of the Russian are being brought to light all the time and are uncomfortable facts which are not appreciated. Churchill was always somewhat dubious about the attitudes of this nations leaders but was kept out of some talks by the Roosevelt Stalin team).I suppose I could have watched the UK offering of the X Factor.It was however badly directed and told.

I'm not a WWII historian. I do appreciate authenticity in movies about history. Especially movies about American history. I know what most people know about it. One thing I do know is that there were only 48 stars on the American flag in 1944-45. The scene in the American commander's quarters shows a 50 star flag hanging behind him. No, you can't quite count all the stars. But, the pattern of the array is of the post 1958 flag. Couldn't the prop department afford to go out and find a period-correct flag? I could forgive terrible special effects and a bad plot and stiff acting. But, the wrong flag! Low budget indeed!