Wolves of War

IN A NUTSHELL: At the end of World War II, a tough British officer leads a band of Allied commandos into enemy territory in Bavaria on one last impossible mission to extract an important American scientist held hostage by the Nazis.

The suspenseful war drama was directed by Giles Alderson. The story was written by Toby Kearton and Samuel Christopher Ellis. The screenplay was written by Ben Mole and is based on a true story.

THINGS I LIKED: I really enjoy World War II movies because there was such a clear line between the Allies and the Nazi enemies. In this film, the lines blur a little bit, offering unique insight.

Ed Westwick plays the leading man. I like him, although it was often hard to understand his subtle, facial expressions at times.

Matt Willis plays a large role in the movie. He kind of reminded me of a young Russell Crowe both in looks and voice quality. Did you know he's the co-founder and bassist in the band "Busted"?

Max Themak plays the sadistic Nazi leader. He is so over-the-top in his viciousness that it's easy to hate him.

There are some suspenseful moments.

The team looked like they were trying hard to create an interesting movie.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: There are some cliched moments stolen from other/better movies.

I wished I had captions to read during this movie because sometimes, it was hard to understand what people were saying.

The child actors were not very good. I feel so mean writing that.

As a Grammar Nazi, I wished they had added punctuation to the end card toward the end of the movie. I always appreciate reading "the rest of the story" at the end of movies like this.

The field gear and locations in the movie aren't accurate. True history buffs will be annoyed by that. The film would have definitely benefited from having a military consultant on set.

Ultimately, the movie isn't memorable.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: Brutal violence Bloody deaths Profanity, including 1 F-bomb

THEMES: War Hope Family Science The value of human life

I stumbled upon the 2022 war movie "Wolves of War" by random chance, and never having heard about it, I didn't know what to expect from it, aside from it being a war movie. But I will say that the movie's cover/poster definitely seemed interesting. So of course I opted to give the movie a chance.

Well, I must say that this 2022 war movie's cover definitely oversold the movie. The movie, while definitely being watchable, was not a top notch production. The movie just permeated with a low budget shoestring feel to it. Don't get me wrong here, I am not saying that director Giles Alderson's 2022 war movie "Wolves of War" wasn't watchable, because it was. I am saying, however, that you shouldn't put your expectations up from the cover, because the movie isn't as grand as the cover makes it out to be.

Writer Ben Mole managed to put together a fair enough storyline. And while it made for an adequate viewing, however I doubt that I will ever return to watch "Wolves of War" a second time, simply because the contents of the storyline is unable to support more than a single viewing.

For a World War II war movie then "Wolves of War" came in under the radar, and it will just as quietly and unnoticeably disappear again from the radar without having left a lasting impression. If you enjoy World War II movies, then there are far, far better movies out there.

The acting performances in the movie were good. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but they definitely put on good enough performances for a movie such as this. And it was especially good that the German troops were speaking in German, and not just a thickly German accented English. Having them speak in German certainly added a layer of realism to the movie.

"Wolves of War" was an adequate enough action movie set within the confines of World War II. However, you're not in for a grand cinematic movie experience if you opt to watch director Giles Alderson's 2022 movie.

My rating of "Wolves of War" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Out of loyalty to Rupert Graves for "Room with a View" (1985) and "Maurice" (1987) I can't go lower than a five for this, but it's really not very good. Indeed, that star of stage and screen features for just about five minutes of this otherwise rather cheaply presented story of a group of British soldiers sent to retrieve this brilliant (American) scientist and his daughter from the hands of the Nazis. Led by "Norwood" (Matt "Busted" Willis) and assisted by a terribly wooden Ed Westwick ("Wallace"), Sam Gittins ("Deegan") and Jack Parr's "Owens" we have quite an easy-on-the-eye group of squaddies facing a tough task navigating the forest to find their target, all whilst the dastardly "Von Sachs" (Max Themax) - straight from "'Allo 'Allo" - is routinely slaughtering the locals and anyone who comes into contact with them. Their escape plans suggests "Roops" only had one spare filming day, or that he lives next door to a favour-owed director, so much of the film is actually about their duel with the enemy as they try to escape. The cameraman has probably had the best of it, placing his kit inside bushes and trees and at times that does help give this just a semblance of menace, but for the most part this just looks like what it is. An assembly of seriously mediocre talent trying to tell a serious story in the manner of an under-resourced pantomime. I really wouldn't bother.

I love WWIi films but not this one. So bad in so many ways. Like a 1" thick wooden table could really serve as a shield against a machine gun. Like military men in that era turning their machine guns horizontally while firing or the two handed hold on a pistol grip? I don't think so. Or bombs being dropped and grenades exploding with nearly zero damage to soldiers going unscathed. So hard to watch this very misguided update to such small things that for me, made this film nearly unwatchable. Even though the the story was supposedly based on a true story, I didn't really care if the good guys finished their mission successfully or not. Total waste of time.

Cable TV has a lot answer for. And that 'lot' is the number of very poor quality movies (those rating less than 5 stars on IMDB) being pumped out and not worth the effort of hitting the play button. I can only presume this is to give the growing horde of cable channels some "content".

They are awful, cheap things that are worse than time-passers, films that can be used to do just that. No, they are time wasters. That time being the 20 minutes one spends giving it a chance, before switching it off in contempt.

Poor benighted "Wolves of War" here is just yet another one. I have taken aim at it here because I just spent 2 hours trying to find a historically based movie to watch. I tried 4, 2 set in Roman times and 2 in WW2. They were all garbage.

And it is not just today, but for months I have flicked through the cable dross and found hardly anything to watch. To review this movies, which is my job here, I will say that it is: merely adequately acted, (no one was anything other than a cliche)', poorly budgeted (it looks cheap) and full of technical errors, (a character gives his main weapon to someone else while he goes out alone to operate the radio. In enemy territory!). But these just few problems are not "WoW"s sins. There is a plethora of the said "bill fillers" that work exactly the same way. Even the opening credits of the different movies use the same regimen, Black and white historic stills fading in and out of ones of the cast "acting".

But being one who is here to help let me suggest: Movie makers, pool your resources and make a few quality movies rather than copious poor ones. That way you should be able to afford a good director and historical/technical advisors who actually are knowledgeable, instead of just thinking they are, thereby cheapening the whole production down to garbage level.

Near enough is never good enough, when the customer is paying for it.