Tobruk

There were two reasons I rushed to see this one, firstly because I loved Dark Blue World, a compassionate Czech war film about Czech pilots flying in the RAF in the Battle of Britain. It instilled in me the idea that Czech cinema could show the world how it was possible to have local soldiers alongside those of another nation without anyone getting insulted.

The second reason was that it was about Tobruk- a battle almost never seen on screen and a legendary one in the history of soldiers of my country.

Firstly I must say that Tobruk treats Australians well. We don't turn up much but when we do we seem human enough. One particular part showing some Aussies drinking in a bar and nonchalantly cheering for a man who has just fallen down the stairs seemed like a bit of comedy specially there for us, and it shows the attention to detail the cultural research must have had.

As a movie itself though, it was pretty lackluster. I don't mean because there is hardly any action (but be warned if you want action- there's little to go round) but because the movie just doesn't know what it wants to do, or who it should be following. At one point the camera follows a terror stricken deserter for a good 15 minutes, but when he meets up with some friends who have seen recent action, one has to wonder why the hell the camera didn't show their struggle instead. It seems the budget was blown on artillery barrages (which look very impressive BTW).

The characters are good, and you can identify with them, but they don't really change at all, and for some reason there's a cliffhanger ending. Since this movie doesn't really seem like one that is begging for a sequel, the ending seems pretty abrupt and badly written.

So yeah. Not very good. Avoid it if you want Action, an outline of the battle and/or why it was so important, a glimpse of a tank of any kind (despite being a large part of the battle), or for that matter, a glimpse of a German soldier. Yeah, hard to believe, isn't it.

However see it for the character study, what it's like to be a Jew disliked by an army fighting to protect your kind, training scenes, dim bunker scenes, the interesting dynamic of men being led by a man they hate so much they'd almost kill him themselves (and you'll wish for it too) and some fairly good desert photography. Oh and if you loved that shot out of Benjamin Button where the sub and tugboat were slinging blazing tracers at each other in the dead of night, there's a bit of that here too. Definitely a 'watch it to see what it was like back then' film rather than any real entertainment.

This narrow insight into the famous battle of the North African Campaign during the Second World War could just leave you cold. Agreed, there generally aren't too many productions about the (Czecho)Slovakian participation in the war but I have to say that Dark Blue World was simply the better and the more interesting movie. Maybe I was just too much disappointed by the advertising of the film that promised to consider the whole battle but this film presented only very small portion of the action. More highlighted were some shocking twists of a runaway soldier, which maybe have a fair anti-war purpose but then the movie should have had entirely a different name than "Tobruk". Avoid this if you want to see a film about the battle of Tobruk; and watch this if you were looking for a film about war in bare bones.

I agree with Aiax, this is a decent Eastern European effort. I am justifiably dubious about Eastern EU films, especially war films. They usually suffer from low production value, poor writing and dialogue. Largely manipulative and Nationalistic propaganda films. This one largely does not suffer from any of that. It is a "just tell it like it is" war film without a lot of backstory development. This is not an action packed over produced blow up everything blood soaked war film. It does show the boredom and soul crushing routine behind the lines before you find yourself in a hot spot. Some of the dialogue and situations suffer in the believability department but the costuming, sets and props look authentic, they pyrotechnics are good as well. It's nice that someone has put a focus on a pivotal battle that helped turn the tide in the early part of WWII. Worth a watch if your looking for a war flic.

What this movie lacks is a story, a dramatization, in other words a script. It is not enough to put together a couple of classical anti-war scenes that we have already seen in scores of movies (like for example when a grenade hits and instantly amputates both of a soldier's legs, reminiscent of Black Hawk down), add to that some clichéd soldier behavior (very similar to Jarhead and other movies) and expect this to make for a good film. As a result we couldn't care less what happens to any of the protagonists, we do not have a sense of what is happening on the battlefield and why (even if one knows his history) and we are left empty when the movie finally ends.

On a more positive note, what really is excellent in this movie is the cinematography (reminds me very much of David Lean) and sound (the artillery barrages really sound convincing). This alone however is nowhere nearly enough to elevate this movie to anything but below average.

One by one the Eastern European movies are drawing line with Hollywood, especially in the badly neglected production value department. The best example, together with a couple of solid Hungarian and Polish attempts, are probably Night Watch, Day Watch or The 9th Company from Russia. The fourth one to catch up is the once great Czech cinematography. Tobruk is certainly no Private Ryan or Pearl Harbour, neither budget-wise nor fun-wise, but it sure looks and feels damn good, especially the music and sounds (divx is a poor option, must see in decent Dolby movie theatre!). It's probably not the best choice for pure action flick lovers and blockbuster addicts, Tobruk is too lengthy, austere and broody for that, more in the The Thin Red Line style or - perhaps more fittingly - All Quiet on the Western Front. But for real war movie lovers it makes it up with some really mean and gory scenes, 0% cheesiness and uncompromising WWII North Africa authenticity - and you can never get enough of those, am I right? :)