The Middle Course

You wouldn't think that a 59-minute second feature could be padded, but this one about Vincent Ball, a Canadian flyer whose plane is shot down in Alsace during the Second World War and leads the complacent villagers in fighting the Germans, who have been leaving them alone, is boringly so.

Mostly it's about people telling others things, again and again. "Tell us why we should!" "Listen to me and I'll tell you." "Who are you?" "Tell them who I am." "Go back to the house. I am ordering you to go back to the house, do you understand?" Over and over again, with British actors doing generic French accents. Over and over again, interspersed, occasionally, with shots of men dressed in Wehrmacht uniform tramping across a meadow, presumably headed towards the village to retrieve Mr. Ball