Blood & Gold

It's a good homage to Tarantino with it's own style, humor and slapstick mixed with splatter. The pace is good and the story swings between a serious WWII drama and turns back to the funnily absurd story. I like this back and forth, and it gives good twists. Of course, all cliches are delivered and you know who is good and bad right away. However, it doesn't hurt the film nor the fun.

I think this is one of the better Netflix movies and it's great to see that Netflix takes such a genre and movie style into account. Hopefully we see more films like this.

The CGI could sometimes be a bit more realistic, but I'm complaining on a high level...

This is straight up the plot from an old spaghetti western, complete with hangings, gold, a woman on the farm, and everything in between. Even the music, the font and color of the credits is an homage to the western movies of yesteryear telling the tale of one man versus many.

Now, change the setting from the Old West to the final days of WWII and you find yourself asking why is this not been done before? Add in some gratuitous violence and you'll be surprised how perfectly well the two ideas pair together and you won't be disappointed.

Comparisons to Tarantino are accurate but there's nothing wrong with that!

There's a ring of authenticity in this German-made war film. The action and the gore are realistic which make the storytelling so entertaining.

The plot line is predictable yet the viewer is glued to his seat waiting for the next gory scene to unfold.

Acting is superb. Ergo, all the actors particularly the lead characters dished out memorable performances. Because of them there's not a dull moment from the first few frames until the end. Take a bow Robert Maaser, Marie Hacke, Alexander Scheer and Roy McCrerey. Likewise, Director Peter Thorwarth deserves recognition for a gritty, sensible film.

It's observed that the film has a "Tarantino-esque feel. This is true. Which makes one wonder that this kind of film that hews closely to the Tarantino brand of filmmaking is possible outside of Hollywood.

BLOOD & GOLD is a blackily comic action adventure about Nazis invading a small German village in a hunt for Jewish gold. It's unusual to see the Germans handling a subject matter they used to avoid like the plague, and I wasn't sure of the outcome, but rest assured this has the same kind of very European humour as many recent Scandi flicks. The Nazis are presented as dastardly comic book villains and much fun comes from seeing the various ways in which they're destroyed by our heroes. The film occasionally subverts tropes and keeps viewers on their toes, and the Down's Syndrome character is a great addition to the cast. A shame physical deformity is presented as monstrous (as per usual), but aside from that this is a pleasant surprise.

For a 100 min long film, it felt much longer, especially after the first act, of which was the best. It set up the narrative nicely and suspensefully, but started to drag its feet by the second act, and then the third act just became riddled with cliches and ridonculous estrogen-filled girl power antics that were all too predictable. Although the score was adequate, the soundrack throughout became annoyingly loud, overbearing and out of place. It's like the director thought he was being fancy, when it was really more annoying than stylish. There were some great action scenes up until the third act, when everything became overzealous to the point of eyerolls and cringes. It's an ok one time watch if you're bored, but you wont be missing anything if you skip it altogether. It's a generous 6/10 for great cinematography and sets, and some decent acting and the few well-done action scenes.