User reviews

I wanted to like this movie, but I'm afraid I just couldn't - sorry. Here are my main faults.

1) Film-makers -here's a tip - the CLOSE-UP can be an effective tool in story telling, BUT if you ONLY use close ups and never any other angles, it just ends up feeling like you are trapped in a cardboard box with the actors.

2) The lighting - TOO DARK. I had to adjust the settings on my TV to make out the action and in the end I just couldn't tell who the different characters were. Which brings me to....

3) Characters - except for 3 or 4 guys I just didn't know who was who. There was not enough time spent developing any personalities before we head off to France and.....

4) France - and particularly Normandy. Had anyone involved in the film ever been to Normandy? The roads, fields and countryside used for filming look NOTHING like Normandy and what was with that brand new American style wooden fence. There is NOTHING like that in Normandy.

5) Acting - Now I know that I shouldn't expect Matt Damon and other A-listers in every film. But where did they find this lot? Bar a couple of exceptions they were all awful. Surely there are college actors out there who don't sound like they are reading everything off idiot boards? As I say, I wanted to like this film, I know some of the guys who were filmed jumping and others involved in the original concept. But, this truly is a piece of garbage. Well intended perhaps - but a piece of garbage nonetheless.

Sorry

Three companies of paratroopers travel in a deadly mission to France to prepare the drop zone for the airborne attack on the D-Day. They have to install an Eureka transmitter and searchlight to guide the planes in the Normandy invasion.

"Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers" is a dreadful and lame war movie - maybe the worst I have ever seen. The "untold and lost story" is disrespectful with the true Normandy invasion and the screenplay is awful without character development and poor dialogs. The direction is also awful with permanent close up camera and terrible soundtrack of machine gun all the time. The acting is ridiculously amateurish. The "battle scenes" are so fake and there is one particularly corny scene, when the German soldier throws a grenade in the trench, one paratrooper shows it to the others and uses his body to contain the explosion instead of throwing it back. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Desbravadores: Na Companhia de Estranhos" ("Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers")

Note: On 20 March 2021, I saw this film again.

From the first note of the opening song, this film blunders from anachronism to anachronism with the gay abandon of a film club of 10 year olds. Carefully chosen music that wouldn't be heard for 40 years; vehicles chosen perhaps for comfort rather than any likeness to anything that may have been seen in the US Military; a fascinating variety of guns, most of which bear more resemblance to plastic toys than actual weapons; military huts ordered direct from today's DIY catalogues; trees and casual wild life purportedly in England that never grew outside North America. In the end it's more a game of spot the idiocy than watch the film. Lighting and cameras compete with the director to find the most artistic shots, that of course don't work as art or film, and simply mystify as to their part in a plot which is harder to find than the Pathfinders' actual landing point. Tension is created more by having actors squabble than from real tension points. Characters you don't care about, in places that never existed, doing things that don't make sense ... badly. War films are just too well-researched and lovingly and accurately put together these days for this rubbish to shine in anything except ... well ... a rubbish dump! This is an insult to the real people who really suffered doing real heroic deeds.

I like a good war film and this is not a good war film. Awful close ups all the time. They should be used for dramatic effect not in every scene or cutaway. Terrible sound as if recorded in a toilet. This was shot on 35mm? What a waste. Civilian period costumes awful. The English country house? Obviously set in in USA. We did not have double glazed front doors, Lelandi firs, and a totally terrible period interior. Dialogue lacked lustre and to be quite honest I didn't care what they said after an hour of meaningless trite dialogue.Acting from the school of bad acting.Fast pace? What movie were you watching? Lighting done with a forty watt bulb and at other times with a exterior floodlight from the Home Depot. The locations were a joke. Have you ever been to Normandy or even researched the locations? They don't have a re-occurring picket fence and country paths but high hedgerows and flat plains. It looked as if it was all filmed on someones country estate. As for the largest exterior set used in a low budget film, I would ask for a refund. Didn't you you do any research yet again. I note the DOP is not mentioned in the enormous credit list. I take it he was too ashamed to put his name to it. Everything was seriously flawed in one way or another and I could go on and on but I have wasted enough time on this already. Why did I give it a 2? The aeroplanes, you could have made more of them.

*Lousy acting (lots of unnecessary emoting) *Awful sound (muddled in parts, unnaturally sparse in others) *Questionable historical sets/settings (is that even France?) *No directing (everything is in close up!) *Laughable dialog ("Why, you're as ugly as soup!!") *Even the soundtrack is the wrong era (retro big band music??!).

This is just a bad community college play captured on film.

If this movie cost $50, someone spent $40 of it on hookers for the crew.

I understand that this is an Indy film and all, but come on, they made decent war movies in the 50s and 60s with small budgets on the back lot. Why can't these folks (in 2011) come up with at least a watchable film about such an important story?

I have never posted before, never seen the point as some one else tends to have said what I think already but after watching this film I felt compelled to say something.

The only positive comments seem to stem from the amount of time spent on the film and/or the small amount of money it cost so let me tackle this first.

Time spent on the film: If the film took this long then why did it look like it had been improvised the day before? The script was shocking. Why were the camera angles so bizarre and laboured? Where is the evidence of this?

Size of budget: I have not been able to find anything saying how big the budget was so cannot provide a definitive comparison. That said there are numerous examples of people taking small budgets and working them into something that the actors can say they have been in with pride. A small budget does not equal a poor film any more large budgets guarantee a good film. Money should not have made as much of an impact unless it meant that they obtained the services of a director, script writer, camera man etc really cheap because they were in a coma. I could have forgiven you a few small inaccuracies with kit due to a small budget but the deficiencies with the film far exceed anything to do with money.

I have seen excellent performances within theatre performed entirely by amateur dramatists that are on par with professional pieces. You have to take account the woeful script but big questions need to be asked of the person in charge of casting & the director. I'm not going to attack the actors here (though the performances were poor) because even the best performances possible would have been lost within the putrid mire of the rest of the production.

As said previously I would never tell someone not to watch a film but I would strongly recommend thinking again before watching this. Even 'Teeth' (normally my lowest marker) was better than this.

I'm probably in the minority here but I found this film to be a steaming pile of "could have". It could have been better, it could have used a bigger budget, it could have used a better director and better actors. And most of all it could have used a better cinematographer.

From the very start of the film it's pretty obvious that this is an extremely low budget effort for the extremely ambitious story they are trying to tell. And unfortunately this just is NOT done well. I've seen lo-budget war pictures before that ended up being extremely effective. In the main they used a fairly limited number of sets and actors and tried to tell "smaller" stories. Pathfinders is an attempt to tell a very large story on a shoestring.

The opening of the movie has a woman singing a song that sounds nothing like a period piece. The wardrobe is just barely up from Halloween costume quality. And the acting is stiff and phony. And it doesn't get any better. Hiring a bunch of amateur hour actors so that you can spend most of your limited budget trying (unsuccessfully) to make your film look authentic is a bad bad idea.

Another irritating thing is the very initial premise of the movie. The use of Pathfinders before the D-Day invasion has been a secret for 60 years. HUH??? Secret from who for crying out loud? Anyone with even a passing interest in WW2 history knows that. It may well be true that nobody made a movie about just that exact facet of D-Day before but it sure as hell hasn't been a secret for 60 years. Pathfinders are at least mentioned in several films, including The Longest Day.

Despite all of the shortcomings of the film, my biggest gripe is with the camera work. Why the heck are there so many needless closeups? Are they trying to hide the shoddy quality of the sets and wardrobe? Honestly this is not the worst film I've ever seen. If it was just a low budget effort with some shortcomings I'd probably give it a 5 or 6 out of 10 rating. BUT it's a movie that never should have been made for this kind of budget! There are some things you just cannot pull off successfully without money. And the people behind this film would have done a lot better if they had tried to work within budget limitations. Ignoring the small budget and trying to do it anyway is just a case of stupidity and arrogance.

3 out of 10.

I watched this film because I eat up everything World War 2. This film was definitely amateur hour at it's worst. The saddest part is that most people know little of the Pathfinders and though mostly ineffective the Pathfinders did play a part in Normandy. That being said, the camera was too zoomed, almost always cutting off the heads and showing us the over- dramatic facial expressions from the B - movie actors. The Sound, well, sincerely said it's as bad as a bootleg DVD filmed with a camcorder in a movie theater. Truly horrible production, camera shots, sound, acting, scripting and overall picture quality. The only way I'd recommend this trash would be for use in torturing a prisoner for information. Honestly, THAT bad.

I suspect due to a slight nostalgia mixed with patriotism - we find the vast glut of WW2 dramas and films receiving high ratings on places like IMDb. Some deserve it - like Band of Brothers, other don't.

This films diminished budget seems to have been an excuse to get bad actors who can't deliver lines (but have been told to leave 'poignant'.... gaps.... for dramatic effect). In addition the camera work is bizarre - weird close-ups at strange moments, bad editing and sound that needs normalising to avoid you constantly having to locate the volume control.

Apart from that there's the odd bit of decent dialogue - but not much. The enemy Germans are portrayed in the usual manner all lazy war films do... nothing to challenge the distortions of history here. Oh - and I'm sure I saw a British house looking very up-to-date with PVC window frames - maybe they were back-engineering from alien window tech in the 1940s??

The film was good; it kept me entertained and is worth seeing at least from a filmmaker's perspective. Is it the best war film I have ever seen? – no but it's not the worst either. Sure…it is just an independent film. Yeah, no big named actors. No big budget. No famous director but I give it a 10 for the guts and courage to actually make the film. Why? For the producers, actors and crew to even "think" that they could make this film and then to actually pull it off – in the world of filmmaking is like be the first man on the moon! No one had ever made a period war film on this scale with the budget they had. It's never been done. Simply record breaking! From a producer's point of view – it is a ten! Real vintage aircraft, real actors jumping out of planes, over 250 people credited, period vehicles and army bases! It is simply mind-boggling! The production value and the making of this film should be a part of any film enthusiast's studies. I mean – how on earth did the producers do it?

I've seen some bad films in the past, this is high up on the list of bad films.

Usually I enjoy war films, but I was confused watching this film.

Confused by the dialogue, maybe it is American humour? Having watched 'Friends' I know they do have humour. But this film is SO dry it is unbelievable, you can't tell if they're trying to say something funny or being serious.

While watching the film I was constantly changing the volume up/down.

Put the film on around 2200hrs, twenty minutes in, I'm falling asleep. Yawn!

Eddie Livingston - D-Day Pathfinder - POW (the one the Germans hauled away in the film)

It is my sad duty to advise you of the passing of Pvt. Eddie H. Livingston I Co/504.

Pvt Eddie H Livingston Eddie came to the 82nd by way of the AAF having served at Chanute Field in the parachute test facilities there. He told me that he was "the original test dummy". Anything they thought they could strap on to a man and deliver by parachute they strapped on him first. He had over 178 jumps not counting qualifying, training and combat jumps (3). His combat awards included an un-presented DSC, one Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and seven Purple Hearts.

(The above photo is of Eddie H. Livingston from the Pathfinder photo of Normandy stick #16, June 5, 1944.)

He also told me that in the big "Invasion Lottery" held by the 504 on the return trip to England from Italy, he spent three bucks and picked June 5, 6 and 7.

Eddie was a member of the 504 volunteer group which jumped in Normandy. He went in with the team of 2/508 on DZ N near Picauville, France. Eddie was captured on June 9, and spent the rest of the war in POW camps as a slave laborer--in the coal mines.

Eddie's Form DA 1577 reflects that he was awarded the DSC for the action in which he was captured. It was never presented. Research on my part through several archives has failed to locate any reference as to the citation.

I had the distinct honor to meet Eddie in November of 2000. He was a "Devil" through and through. Immensely proud of his service with the 504.

Word of Eddie's passing was received from his niece Pam Baker, with whom he had been living for the past three years.

David R Berry Dayton, OH

Awful movie. pure water of time. Not even worth a dollar. A bunch of talks and no action. No proper direction or screenplay. Total disappointment .. only people talking in whole movie w/ non serious attitude.. the photo and intro is misleading, - not at all recommend. Whole movie talks and talk, people chatting , laughing, talking, chewing gums, and calling friends. Awful movie. pure water of time. Not even worth a dollar. A bunch of talks and no action. No proper direction or screenplay.Awful movie. pure water of time. Not even worth a dollar. A bunch of talks and no action. No proper direction or screenplay.

This 'film' moved like frozen syrup. Poor acting, unnecessary..........pauses for dramatic effect. Dialogue which made no attempt to move the plot forward and enough close ups that I now have to visit my optometrist. I could only bear about forty five or so minutes and that was with the aid of a fast forward button. Could either side have shown any emotion, you know, with them being in life and death situations and all? As for historical accuracy I'm pretty sure I saw a laptop on a desk in the briefing room, it wouldn't have surprised me. This movie made me sorry the allies won the war, perhaps then it would not have been made. My only saving grace is that it was the 'the free one' on the tail end of a rent one get one free new release coupon!

The poor acting, directing and filming are surpassed only by the terrible script. In most wars the strategies are formed by officers who tell soldiers what is to be done. In this film the officers say such things as, "This could be dangerous," and "Do you realize that if the D-Day invasion is canceled you will be left behind German lines?" The director has no sense of timing with the poor script he was given. All reactions are slow. A soldier really gets a plane to drop him so he can have dinner with his girlfriend? Really? Camera work is terrible with most shots being a few inches from the actor's face. The film saved on electricity because it was almost all in the dark. Maybe giving each actor a flashlight would have helped. When this secret mission parachutes into Germany at night, German soldiers at firing rifles into the night sky at ... what? An airplane? Our secret mission? I would give you more examples but I didn't watch more than the first ten minutes. Wish I had read IMDb before I squandered a buck-twenty.

There's bad films, and then there's films so atrociously awful it should bring criminal charges. From the opening scene it's readily apparent they cast whoever could fit the costume. Absolutely no one in this film can act. Anachronisms run amuck, historical accuracy is treated with the same reverence as a $10 hooker, and everything is shot in very annoying close up. That's just for openers. What's supposed to be Normandy, shot entirely at night, looks like it was filmed in a backyard using a spotlight. The sound is horrendous, the editing is horrendous, and the cinematography is full of some strange and inexplicable angles. And finally the dialog is positively laughable as if that's how they really spoke. I mean this film is terrible beyond words. The only positive I can say is that it is a good story but not after these clowns were through with it. With a bigger budget and talented actors and a director who doesn't look like he learned his craft by watching YouTube tutorials it might make a decent film. Otherwise stay far away from this one.

I have watched just about every WW2 movie and TV series ever made since the war, plus most of key movies made of the Vietnam and Korean wars. Given this movie's synopsis, and having previously read the historical story of D-Day airborne pathfinders, I was really looking forward to watching the movie and hoping it will be good. I was absolutely disappointed!

'Pathfinders' is so bad it has to rank in the worst 5% of WW2 movies ever made! Describing the movie as 'awful' would be an understatement. I always hesitate being too critical but this movie is so bad that it is difficult, arguably impossible, to rate it as anything else.

And what's this about a 60 year secret? Total nonsense!

Some argue that the acting is poor. I believe however that it is pathetic directing and poor production. Who in the right mind directs and produces a film where much of the film involves closeups of actors' faces? How much mouth, nose, eyes and ears, filling the screen, can a viewer take? It got so annoying that it really tested my perseverance and was tempted to stop the movie several times during play. Finally I had had enough about 3/4 of the way through.

There is not much in terms of colors and textures; everything is dark.

Characters are not properly portrayed, developed and followed through the movie. All the characters melded together and one got confused as to who is who.

The film also suffers from lack of continuity and momentum, plus many parts simply do not make sense. It is disjointed.

Much of the tactical movement and action is completely unrealistic and ludicrous.

This movie was to be a portrayal of a dramatic, distinguished and historical battle behind the lines, but lacked so much it did not successfully portray anything.

Sadly this movie does no justice to the brave heroes who were the real pathfinders. Those old warriors, many of whom were citizen volunteers for the war, are deserving of much, much more than this. If this movie was meant to commemorate or memorialize these men or their sacrifices, it has undoubtedly failed and failed utterly.

I cycle through my WW2 DVDs and probably watch each movie twice or more every year. Pathfinders was such a torture to watch that I will probably never watch it again. I would not recommend this movie, and certainly would not recommend buying its DVD.

This movie should be awarded the following for Rotten Tomato categories: 1. Worst Directed Movie. After a couple of minutes you wonder what's with the continual "close up" camera angles? Simple, no credible movie sets/scenery, terrible background scenes, over use of constant close up dim light filming. Stupid (vain attempt at) suspenseful background "noise".

2. Worst written dialogues. I think a High School Thespian club could do a better job.

3. Unimaginable terrible acting. Once again a High School Thespian club can act better this.

4. The most fake & incredulous combat scenes anyone can film to the point that it is humorous.

5. Best job destroying a possibly good WW2 story script about the US Normandy Airborne invasion.

6. This movie is so bad that I felt cheated out the $1.20 Red Box rental fee.

7. This movie is so bad that I felt cheated out of the time I spent trying to like this film! (I could've been doing my continuing Ed).

8. This movie is so bad that I am ashamed to admit I even rented it.

9. Memo to Red Box: Please do everyone a favor and REMOVE it from your rental inventory!

This is awful. Having read the other reviews I decided to summarise my opinion to that simple statement. OK watched a bit more now and am completely frustrated by continuity errors such as the wrong grenades on the German soldiers, the Americans shouting after the Germans have walked passed, all the wounded getting executed by the Germans because obviously they don't want to know why they are there or who they are, intel obviously isn't important to the German army. Why do the Germans have cow bells on? they rattle like a Spanish goat heard as they move and many many more issues. My 12 year old son has made better films with his hand held camera.

I just finished watching this movie (well actually not as I stopped watching after 50 minutes) but in my opinion, this was one of the worst WW2 movies I have seen recently (and I have seen a lot as I have a vested interest in WW2).

Regardless whether the movie was shot on a low budget, a movie that covers such an important moment in history should just not have been shot.

I will not bother the reader to write down an endless list (because it is really endless) of complains and why I gave this movie just 1 out 10. If you have nothing to do and you would like to waste 1,5 hours of your time, I would advise you to watch this movie. If not, you better choice another movie.

Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers tells the story of a secret mission to set up guidance beacons to allow the first wave of the D Day air assault to maneuver to the appropriate location within German-occupied France. This true story has never been told before, so that in itself makes it a unique and interesting film.

The movie tracks different groups of soldiers as the come together to execute the mission. One of my favorite parts of the film is how the pre-jump tension is portrayed between the groups and individually. In the hours leading up to the mission, the soldiers each respond a little differently to the stress of anticipating jumping into battle and possible death. I enjoyed seeing the men joke or panic or pray to cope with their stress. This seemed quite realistic and gave a lot of depth to the characters.

Also, most of the WWII movies I have seen have been huge Hollywood blockbusters. I enjoyed seeing an independent filmmaker tackle the challenge of a war film on an indie budget. The look of the movie was dark and gritty, just like I would imagine war would be. The fighting scenes were shot close up, so I felt like I was part of the action. The battle scenes included a lot of hand-to-hand combat and close range fighting, so it felt like battle. A very different experience from movies I've seen about modern-day warfare like Hurt Locker. I liked feeling like part of the action in Pathfinders.

An added treat in this film was seeing Michael Connor Humphreys back in the movies and all grown up. As far as I know, he hasn't done any screen acting since he played young Forest Gump 15+ years ago, and his Livingston character was one of the most interesting in the film.

The whole movie reminded me of a cheap copy of the famous "Band of Brothers" with a total lack of action. Wherever could have been some action, it seemed to have been cut out of the movie. What disturbed me most at the movie was the use of grenades which had the effect of some new-years-fireworks. A little "puff", a little smoke and that's it... Nice try to bring in some background-story of a family waiting at home while the hero goes to war, but why forget about that story at the end of the movie? Although the whole movie plays at night in France, you always get the impression that the camera-lighting shows the way for the soldiers. Some other reviews talk about low-budget-filming? Yes, I totally agree. This could have done better. We all know these "after-movie-comments" about what happened with the heroes after the war. Well, this part is ridiculous at this movie. Only two soldiers mentioned without any historical background. If you like WWII-movies, watch it if you don't have anything better to do, but I swear you'll never watch it again.

The master plan for the invasion of Nazi-occupied France calls for a small group of pathfinders to set up radio beacons in order to guide the airborne assault. For reasons unknown, the Allied command decides that this mission is to be entrusted to a sorry bunch of third-rate soldiers gathered haphazardly from various units, hence the title "in the company of strangers". Fortunately, the German opposition is made up of utterly incompetent reservists with no combat experience whatsoever.

This movie might have been better as a comedy. A major and a captain discuss the details of the upcoming invasion in a pub! A member of the super-secret pathfinder force visits his girlfriend the day before D-Day! Paratrooper tells funny story involving explosive vomiting!

Not to mention -- weird colors, giving a subtle air of authenticity (or that's what the cinematographer thought, anyway) -- flat dialog -- flat delivery -- and flat combat scenes. Plus, for the true connoisseur, we show an English house in the 1940s with thermopane windows! and an American post-and-rail fence in Normandy!

Don't bother.