User reviews

This Australien film is about the horrors if the First World War's trench wars. Three British soldiers are lost out in the so called no mans land, between the two forces of war on the West Front. The film starts off with the order of sending the men out on a suicide mission against the enemy front. After the shooting is over, the three find each other, and that one of them is severely injured. What's even worse is that they have to get out, because they know there will be an air raid against the enemy front in a few hours time. Then have to get back.

Director Johan Earl had casted himself in the main role here, in his second feature film. after working more ad an actor and special effects man for years. It's been 14 years since his last film.

Making a good depiction of the horrific trench war is not each, and I think it's well done here, though it's made on a very small budget. I like a good true war story told on film, but it's difficult for actors to bear a drama, especially when if comes to dialog and dramatic feelings on screen. The actors do their very best here, what I'm not too fond of, is the side story back home. Not back acted, but if makes the temperature in the film fail. The film would have been better concentrating on which story is the most important, and what should be the main theme of the film.

The best and most exciting scene comes towards the end of the film, so don't give up too early!

The music is OK, but used badly between the two different scenes of the film, and feels forced and too loud on the "back home-scenes". I solos wonder why the Germans have to be so ugly and scarred. Not necessary if you ask me. The movie is also a bit slow, and is over without getting the satisfaction you really want out of it.

Except if your specially keen on war movies, this isn't the one you should be going out of bonds to get hold of.

A poignant film. Beautifully told, and I thought Denai (actress) was superb. I absolutely loved the womens storyline. As a girl, War films are not something I generally race out to see. But this film was recommended to me, and I was not disappointed. This is a war story with a difference, instead of focusing on the scale of war which has been done to death, Forbidden Ground tells the story from ground level. They create an awesome claustrophobic feeling, which is always how I envisaged soldiers on the front line would have felt. Having to keep your head down all the time!! The film captured the very essence of not only the tragedies on the battlefield, but the tragedies at home too. Utterly memorable.

Forbidden Ground is an Australian-made rendition of the plight of British soldiers trapped in no-man's land, and should have been the war epic it was (once) anticipated to be. The unfortunate truth is that it falls short of all expectations, and as a patriotic Australian I take no pleasure in saying it.

From the first moments the small budget is apparent. Close-ups try and disguise the limited scale of the production. The battles in the film are all no more than small skirmishes and never really produced with any flair, impact, or suspense. The constant reliance on CGI for special effects cripples the action, unlike it's predecessor Beneath Hill 60 - which it will surely be compared to - which used mostly practical visual effects and captures gritty violence effectively. As such, when the horror of trench warfare comes along in this film, it is woefully un- engaging, and downright boring in parts. I felt no connection with the men going to their deaths. The obvious computer-generated explosions and squibs left a lot to be desired and had no "punch." It's an anti-war film, as most WWI films are, so you would expect a focus on correctly portraying the shocking waste of war, but Forbidden Ground lacks the budget or know-how to do it properly.

There are some tired clichés including snobby, arrogant officers and the hard-nosed NCO, and while historically accurate in some ways, Forbidden Ground doesn't cast the roles with conviction, simply recycling scenes and minor characters from a dozen better war films. The other problem with authenticity is that most of the cast is Australian, and while our accents may be more or less similar and we often are mistaken for Poms, the actors on show here can't quite make it sound natural and every line feels laborious and forced. If they'd just spoken with their normal accents they would probably have sounded more comfortable with their characters, but alas every Pommy soldier on screen sounds like a caricature of British stereotypes.

Another problem with authenticity is that the unit that is focused on seems to be an amalgamation of British accents. Whether intentional or by accident, units were formed from specific locales (universities, rugby clubs, towns, cities, etc) and would only occasionally be mixed with troops from broadly different locations (casualty replacements).

So the end result is a disappointing straight-to-DVD war drama without any magnetism or flair. I praise the cast and crew for doing what they could to commemorate the war, but I can't recommend Forbidden Ground as good viewing. Better luck next time.

Really enjoyed this film and I'm not much of a war person. It was a really refreshing take on a moment in our history, focusing on the very personal intimacy of mate-ship among soldiers, as opposed to the fanfare of explosions, gunfire and whiz bang visual effects.

It was nice to see a war film that peeked into the lives of the women left at home as well. When I think of the world wars and tragic loss of men involved in the conflict, I must admit I've never contemplated the hardships that women endured back on the home front.

This film offers a glimpse into what I've learnt to be an extremely common issue women were faced with whilst their men fought on the front lines. The limited options and primitive medical practices available to women back then are a frightening realisation of how helpless females must have felt living in that era. To have little to no control over their lives, let alone the ability to remedy bad choices is profoundly confronting.

A great take on a very sad era.

I went into this movie with low expectations. They were not met. Finding the right words to describe this movie is rather difficult, since I really don't like these "worst movie ever" kind of reviews. But I don't know what else to say. This movie is horrible, quite frankly.

It tries it's best at being deep but ends up being nothing but boring and absurd. The actors do a poor job at bringing the one dimensional characters to life, in a terribly boring story.

It is obvious that the makers wanted to create an emotional ride for the viewers to enjoy. This is painfully obvious. Every piece of dialog is written with this in mind. "Tell her... That I...". We have seen and heard all this before. It has already been done. But never have it been done this badly.

I find this movie to be in extremely bad taste. It tries to combine all kind of heavy topics, war, unfaithfulness, abortion, needless deaths on the battlefield. But it's all done in such a poor way that it is almost offending.

Don't watch this movie. You will dread every minute of it and it wont pay off because the ending sucks.

Ugly Germans, cute Brits, and a female abortion is equal to trench warfare. Self-righteous, moralizing garbage. There is no place for subtleness, complexity when all is black and white in a fanatic's mind. The worst thing here about abortion: it cuts down the number of eligible conscripts.I write this revue in a wane hope that it just might slow down "the march of Christian Soldiers" towards the next world war.Here's a suggestion: on par with an "Oscar" let's have a "Golden Goebbels" award for justifying war, making it acceptable, palatable and selling it all to minors as an exciting way to do "the wright thing". Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and "War Horse" come to mind. We all know that "war is a racket" and this film it's newest addition.

This is a very well done World War I picture. But it also is a complete downer. The first war was a bloody and stupid affair with thousands upon thousands of senseless and needless deaths. But that doesn't mean the movie has to be as grim as the war. There are no moments of dramatic relief, no lighter moments. Even the flashbacks to home are dark and morose. In essence this is a straightforward story of three British soldiers, commanded by a snobbish officer-twit, who become stranded in no man's land. Nothing very original there. However the staging and the photography are grimly effective and capture the utter horror of the trenches. But I question why one of the three stranded British soldiers speaks like an American. And why did the Aussies put so much effort into a film about the "pommies" when it would have been just as effective if the soldiers had been Australian.

Wasted opportunity. I suppose this is what you get when an Armourer attempt to be a filmmaker. Being on set does not qualify one to write and make a movie.

Some good effects and filmed scenes for the budget. But for god sake either have australian actors play australian soldiers or use British actors for british soldiers. The terible accents destroyed any ability to take the actors seriously. Also the germans did not usually spend all night plastering trenches with machine gun fire and artillery just to pick off the odd British wounded straggler! There was some honor amongst soldiers

Dramatically the movie held my interest and it takes a realism aspect to do this. But then I saw a major goof when a soldier's watch was revealed to have a quartz works. I moves second by second with jerks, not gently. How hard would it be to find a vintage watch? So it lost a star from this anachronism and I found the rest of the movie more difficult to watch as a reality trip.

The acting, however, was very good, although the marriage sub plot seemed a space saver, not an asset. As a genre type, this was an anti war movie that really takes no sides and that is a plus. The best war movies show the reasons not to have them and that really brings out the dramatic effects.

If you can get past the watch thing, then go ahead with my recommendations.

Forbidden Ground – Battle Ground in other parts of the world – is a must see. The film pushes you - clue: a giant fishhook, you'll know it when you see it – finding a balance between reality and heroism that is exceptionally well carried by the cast. Unlike most films of it's genre, war and violence are not glorified as they are deconstructed. The characters build a convincing and consuming narrative that makes this more than just your average war film. Forbidden Ground proves that war in film is should not be simply well framed explosions – although those that are fans of a good detonation will not be disappointed – but a collection of heartbreaking and precious stories of survival, difficult choices, and perseverance. It is at heart a piece about people, and does not shy away from holding a mirror to battlefield politics and loss of innocence. Visually Forbidden Ground is sleek and where there are some visual effects that are noticeable, they do not intrude on the flow. All in all, Forbidden Ground is a fantastic effort and a quality production, and deserves all the international attention it is getting, and more!

Lacking drama, suspense or much of a plot. This is slow and laborious, and it just doesn't carry any momentum or emotion. Unfortunately this movie just drags and I found it uninteresting, which is a shame, since some of the action scenes are very well done and there was definitely potential. I was hoping for more, but I wouldn't recommend this.

Alright attempt for a low budget film never the less it flows more like a TV movie.

The character development is very poor, as well as some of the acting in key scenes. The side story of the wife is very corny with an under developed path.

The sound track was was an over kill I really felt that they could have backed off a lot I think it was over used.

Set aside the horrible British accent. And bad special effect (though I understand on such a tight budget that that the special effects is as good as they could hope for) the film for me lacked any real substance.

But good try.

I don't remember the last time I watched a movie as bad as this. The action sequences are poor. There was no bond between the audience and the actors. I didn't much care which ones lived and which ones died. From the beginning to the end, the accents were terrible (especially the Irish accent - although I knew there was something off with the others too). I should have read the IMDb info before watching this movie and then I would have figured out that it was an Aussie movie with no Irish or English actors in this production. Anyway, Im not going to waste any more time on this movie. Its 1hr 40mins of my life that I wont ever get back again. A total waste of time. I was Bored to death.