Battle Force

I picked this movie up on a whim, one of many recent low budget WW2 movies that seem to have been hitting the shelves of the straight to DVD market. I have no problem with low budget films of this type and recently there have been some good ones and this one starts out with noble intentions as the opening titles would suggest, that the film is about the story of a real unit, made up of Americans and Canadians (The Film the Devils Brigade covers the actual unit) but here unfortunately is where the factual content of the film ends.

Set just before the invasion of Scily an American recon unit (Apparently the 101st Airborne who never actually were there) are captured and another team is sent to rescue them. That's the plot in a nutshell. The DOP has gone to some considerable effort to give the film a warm feel to represent the right part of Europe, but this can't let the film escape the fact that it was obviously all shot in California. I would have thought someone could have least grabbed a camera and taken some shots of the actual island which could have been nicely edited in to compensate for this. The acting wasn't all bad, and there were some funny lines,(plenty are just awful) but that's the problem with this film, it gives the impression its going to be about a factual battle, then half way through tries to become Kelly's Heroes and does neither successfully. The unit don't act like a military unit, moving with caution in one shot and then sauntering along the same path with not a care in the world in the next moment. The Nazi officer is just comical and stands in the middle of the road firing his gun while gunfire rages all around him. The fight scenes are actually quite boring and full of continuity issues and often make little sense to the plot or serve to enhance the story. (Such as it is) This project obviously started out with good intentions and its not as bad as 'Rhineland' (That's way worse) but somewhere it got lost and couldn't decide what it wanted to be. If your going to make films set in Europe, then you need to look at A Midnight Clear for an example of how to do it properly (Shot entirely on location in the USA)

I wanted to like this film and for a brief moment I thought I might, but in the end there was just too much that was wrong with it, which was a shame, because there could have been a good little film here. Alas sadly not.

A special forces group fighting against odds on a suicidal mission. So much to the story, which is a workable plot. Equipment, at least on the Allied side, looks authentic. Individual acting is not bad, sometimes above average, maybe even too slick at points. The Nazi officer is overdrawn. The problem is the lack of combat feel. Some of the worst shootings in movie history. Special forces not able to aim, the Germans not doing any better. Tactics, group movement, avoiding ambushes (if there were any)...forget it. Surprisingly good close and knife combat between the LT and an Italian guy. A few minutes later, surprisingly underwhelming close combat between the LT and some other guy (saving the spoiler). The amusing thing is, the movie is not the typical B class movie that needs 30 seconds to quit, but is entertaining in its own way, with its mix of setting and dialogue, esp. with the Missouri GI. 70% watchable, the rest is running around and shooting...and missing.

One of the worst war films I've seen. The low budget certainly doesn't justify the film being filled with errors. Many films use a low budget to enhance psychological depth or other aspects that can be explored even without money.

The errors are numerous, right from the beginning, making this a difficult film to watch until the end. Mistakes in setting, errors in uniforms, historical inaccuracies. The dialogues are truly poor and unprofessional, clearly lacking an expert on World War II military themes in the production. The actors are not very credible, if not entirely unbelievable. When I rate a film, I usually start from 10 and then deduct points based on aspects that I find poorly executed. It's difficult for me to give a score below 6 because I always recognize the value and effort behind the production of a film. In this case, I had to start from 6 because from the very first frames, the low cinematic quality of the production is evident. I've seen films made by amateur reenactors that were better done and even with even fewer resources than this.

I love World War II movies. I have enjoyed ones made during World War II through the present. I have enjoyed all countries of origin from the Nazi propaganda turkey "Stuka" on. I enjoy movies about all sides and all theatres of the war, if it's a well done movie. Alas, Battle Recon definitely is not.

It's normally a very bad sign when the director, the writer and the top billed star are all the same person. It was. With ludicrous acting and an utterly cliché script there was little to save the movie. The even had utterly cliché characters like the classic black on black trench coat evil SS officer.

The script wasn't just cliché, it was 21st century politically correct cliché. The day had to be saved by two Italian partisan women.

It's not difficult to get historical continuity in World War II movies. There are so many armchair experts to assist you. Obviously they didn't bother to go to gunboards.com and ask for a decent one. The German uniforms were clearly East German uniforms with Nazi insignias sewn on. They were almost all SS insignias, like they had hired cheaply a bunch of re-enactors.

They couldn't even get basic continuity items right. The Italian partisan's gun kept switching between a Mauser and a M1 Garand. It was as if they put down their guns between shots and couldn't even tell everyone to pick up the right one between shots.

Don't bother with this one, not with thousands of better World War II movies out there.

To be fair, I watched only the first 20 minutes of this movie, so my comments are only based on that. I might have hung around if WWII Sicily's "landscape" wasn't so easily recognizable as that of Southern California. I gave up hope when several shots showed the film's characters walking along railroad tracks on top of modern concrete ties with modern signals in the background.

I get the feeling this movie was a film school project. And if it was, then I guess it's OK for that purpose. If not, at least it was a good opportunity for inexperienced actors to put something in their blank resumes.

The combat special effects were OK... enough has been said by others regarding the realism of the combat itself, but I thought the special effects used for weapons discharge and bullet flight was OK... more realistic than those we used to see 15-20 years ago. That earned this movie its 3rd star.