User reviews

*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 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.

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 '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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

Alright, so I was at one point a part of this production. I actually introduced them to their first (and apparently only talented) composer, and was cast as one of the lead roles. After a month I had a potential opportunity in San Diego, and at the same time they decided that I didn't look "old" enough to play the part of someone, who in real life looked younger. I didn't actually find out they had re-casted the part until a couple weeks of not hearing from the Director. Only one of the original cast members made it to the final cut.

Pretty much what happened here is a group of people with an honest goal decided they knew more than they did. Let's put it this way, I had only done stage acting to this point, wasn't bad, and one of the first meetings with the Director I had, he told me "You don't have to be a good actor to be in film, you just have to look the part."..... That explains the whole movie really.

In the end it looks like I really dodged a bullet with this one. Looks like they could have made use of my acting though. They only have themselves to blame.

I watched this after reading the reviews on IMDb. I thought that I would give it the benefit of the doubt and support independent cinema. At the very worst I thought that if the reviews were true then the film would fall into the 'so bad its funny category'.

I really wish I haven't bothered. This film is clichéd, poorly acted, poorly directed with terrible sound quality. Pretty much everything about it is terrible and I really don't know how any 'actor' would want to be associated with it.

All of the characters are so wooden and clichéd I didn't really care who they were and I really didn't care when some of them were killed. The dialogue was so dull that I didn't really care what the plot but I was hoping that at least there would be some nice big explosions. I was disappointed there as well! The unrealistic fight scenes were a throw-back to the war poor films of the 1960 like the Battle of the bulge.

On the plus side, if you like watching loads of blokes in uniform running round and round the same bush in the dark then this is the film for you! My only big regret is that you can't rate this film with 0 stars! I wasted an hour and a half of my life watching this pile of drivel, don't waste your time. Watch Band of Brothers for an example of how it can be done properly!

I got this at the Dollar store. My Grandma wanted to see it with me, but we both did the same thing: sleep through most of it! I don't know what happend but alas, I don't really care.

I saw the beginning and some parts in between , and I was awake when it ended. I sold it at a garage sale and the woman said it was for her teen sons. I don't know if they liked it.

I've seen many movies that I liked, if not loved. And I know they were good due to how well I could pay attention. Pathfinders is not that movie. I'm sorry, but see a different war movie. Or movie in general.

First time reviewer, but I had to save you guys wasting your time on such a bad movie.

The sound is poor, the dialogue is poor the acting is worse. close ups every five seconds and I've only watched 10 minutes so far.

Thirty minutes in and I'm loosing the will to live. why am I still watching this drivel?

If the $50 budget is correct it really don't surprise me the actors must have been volunteers and filmed on a camcorder.

Right I've had enough 1hr in and its going off. I tried to get to the end but I just can't take it any more.

Quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen, and I've seen a few bad one's.

If I could I would give this 0 out of 10 sorry.

I have never reviewed a movie before but felt compelled to do so to dispel the utter rubbish in some of the reviews posted below.

It is obvious that any positive review below is written by people who have a vested interest in the success of this movie. You only need to realize that they joined IMDb the day that reviews were opened for this film and have never posted since.

Now to the movie: What can I say?.. I was eager to see this because I am a WWII fanatic and knew the story of the Pathfinders which apparently I wasn't supposed to because according to the opening sequence, the story has been untold for 60 years..what utter drivel! Any person with a little knowledge of D Day knows about the Pathfinders. Anyway- I digress- So I decide to choose this film to watch from my collection and in anticipation with my bowl of popcorn and bottle of coke, I push play.

It went downhill from there... At minute 5 when two senior officers are discussing sending in an advance team prior to D-Day, I cringed. The acting was so bad.. so bad that I was expecting Pauly Shore to appear at some point. The acting never got better and in fact the movie never recovered. There was no exception to this from any actor. I persevered only because I thought that the mission behind enemy lines would be the strong point of the movie. I was wrong and boy did it feel like a long time until they mission actually kicked off.

The use of the camera was terrible with so many close-up shots in key moments in the movie which took any suspense and any form of credibility away from the scene.

The setting of Normandy was a joke...it was obviously shot on some farm somewhere in about 100 yards of paddock. There was never any feeling that the action was taking place in France or Britain- Honestly it looked like it was shot by some high school kids for their high school project.

I was going to give it a 1 out of 10 but decided on a 2 out of 10 for two reasons: The craft (jeeps and planes) were pretty real as well as the uniforms. Also I liked the realistic bullet fire at the plane in the scene where they jump.

I would recommend not wasting your time on this movie. Low budget or not, it was terribly done. Rather stick to something else and if you are looking in the same Genre and for a low budget production that is enjoyable then try "Saints and Soldiers"

Dreadful acting, dreadful sound, dreadful camera-work, dreadful script. Dreadful! One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is. One doesn't need 10 lines of text to go into how bad this film is.

I was so upset by the obviously fake positive reviews here and the high rating that I had to register and give the worst score possible, which is what this film deserves! Thanks to ryan_ohana, Portnam, erostew, akamberg, david-2835 and (pmorris00) for telling the truth that must be apparent to anyone who has watched even 5 mins of this movie: that it is simply awful!

What I find the saddest, even compared to having made such an uninspired, terribly directed and acted movie, is that the talentless amateurs who were involved with this movie do not have enough pride to refrain from posting fake reviews on IMDb lauding their own movie, which they themselves must realise is an utter failure.

I watched Saving Private Ryan the other day. Everyone that has seen it must admit it is epic in every way. So still in the mood for another movie about this moment in history i decided to watch Pathfinder. The movie starts with some paratroopers dropping into France, so the first 30 seconds looked promising. Next the story takes you back a few weeks to events leading up to this drop. You see some London club where a female singer is performing a style of music which hadn't even been invented before the 1960s. This is followed by some dialog between a general and some major about the importance of the mission at hand. The sound and acting of this dialog already made my spider senses tingle. I decided to press pause and surf to IMDb to get some confirmation on what i was sensing. To my disappointment my worries were justified. I continued watching the movie in FFWD x120 and am glad i didn't waste 141 minutes of my time on this crap.

-Acting: amateurs? -Director: was there actually a director? -Production: was there a budget?

Just a shame that such a vital mission in one of history's most important battles got raped like this.

I really hope a real studio picks up on this story and makes a film about it which is worthy.

What was no doubt a fantastic story to tell, utterly destroyed by cardboard acting, nauseating cinematography, amateurish sound track (I'm sure a pneumatic drill stands in for a machine gun at one point), and an entirely disappointing experience to watch.

A shameful dis-service to fallen heroes who deserve to have their war-time exploits portrayed in a far superior manner.

Seriously, don't waste your time.

It can't even be described as being "so bad that it's laughable".

It's terrible.

Avoid.

I can easily see why some war movies aren't promoted as much as others and some just aren't promoted at all. This movie was clearly low-budget. The grenades had hardly any explosive effect to them whatsoever. The first hour or so of the movie featured way too many close-up shots. If you can't stand the sight of blood, this movie is okay to watch because there was no blood seen anywhere in the film. The acting was very poor as well. I'm a big fan of war movies but the only way I can enjoy a film is if the acting is at least decent, the effects are genuine, and it's historically accurate. This film wasn't as hard to get through as Brother's War was but it's not far off in the level of horrific film making.

I have never seen such bad acting in my life. My high school theater had better acting in it than this movie. I never wanted to see most of the people in this movie so close in my life and will be scarred from it. There are so many pauses between each line that it is killing me. Why do they have camp makeup on at base. I'm pretty sure uniforms in WWII were not painted. This is ridiculous! I would like to apologize to any WWII veterans that watch this. They don't have German shepherds they have black labs? Paratroopers didn't have M1 Garands they had M1 carbines. Awful movie don't waste your time. There is random music for no reason and it is always the same bagpipes. Sucks.