The Resistance Fighter

Incredibly well filmed. The storyline, events and characters brought an intensity to the film, I had my nose to the screen! This historical event and it's players in history brought back to life on screen I found intensely fascinating. Brilliant movie. Not sure why anyone would think otherwise. It takes an impressive effort to put a story like this together and WOW factor direction and acting. Highly recommend !

This could have been great. But it focuses on so many things that don't add to the story. It would seem he is supposed to be in a rush, but he takes forever to do certain things. Why spend the effort to get the plane out? This only would allow nazis to catch up. Apparently he can't ride a bike. So let's spend time learning a bike. Why did the woman not say her son was dead, why did the nazis not check the attic? Lots of unanswered questions. This was a lot entrusted to a LT. Again I believe the true story would have been good. This added to many things that call into question the realism of this account.

It's 1944 and Poland is under brutal German occupation. In London, Jan Nowak-Jezioranski is a Free Poland soldier acting as a courier between the Polish government in London and the resistance in his home country. The Allies have decided that Poland shall be under Soviet control after the war. Jan is to deliver a message to stop the impending uprising.

In this movie, Jan is a horrible spy/courier. He is too impulsive and so pushy as to stand out in a crowd. The girl is too obvious at the moment of the party. Her reveal loses some of the shock. There is a difficulty with the story in that the history is well known. The question is how to generate any tension from his mission when the end is already written. I almost want the execution scene. It does settle on an internal conflict within Jan but it's not set up at all. Despite all that, there are moments of great emotional drama like the old farmer lady. There are some tension with some of the pursuit like the train. Those little moments elevate this war drama despite its various issues.

Other reviews of this film have been pretty negative but I was surprised how good it was. In the vain of "Max Manus" and "The Black Book" two great war films about the resistance "The Resistance Fighter" is actually about a Polish soldier sent back to Poland from England to deliver messages to the Polish Home Army. The germans are slowly retreating from Poland while the russians are advancing on Poland from the east. I really liked the main character Lt. Jan Nowak-Jezioranski who is the courier sent back to Poland while trying to evade getting captured or killed by the germans. I thought the dialogue and subtitles were well done in this film and the plot moves swiftly as the Lt. is pursued by a german spy who wishes to make contact with the underground and convince them the invading russians are their real enemy. Lt. Jan is tough and capable and the action scenes are well done here. Their is a sad history lesson at the end of this film that some reviewers have said shouldn't be discussed anymore but I disagree. I had low expectations of this film going in but was very pleasantly surprised and glad I purchased it on Amazon.

It's a true story of an actual Polish freedom fighter who acted as a courier between London and the Polish resistance under extreme duress and against overwhelming circumstances, but he overcame them all. Sadly and unfortunately there are flaws in the dramaturgy. The most interesting part is his terrible ordeals in getting back to Warsaw through all kinds of impediments, the British in London refusing to support the Polish resistance without consent from the Soviets, everything going wrong on the journey including an airplane getting stuck in the mud, a Swedish agent for the Germans keeping track of him and trying to betray him although he once acted as a real gentleman to her, while a lot of the story is left out. We see very little of the sufferings of the Polish people, Warsaw appears here as totally intact and untouched by the war although the events here occurred after the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto, which never is mentioned by a word, and when at last the uprising begins, we heard nothing more about how it proceeded, how the Soviets betrayed them, the whole war is rather minimalized here, while it is still excellently well filmed and acted, which is why it's a pity they didn't make more of the dramatic elements of the story. It is not like a documentary, but it is rather like a Polish populistic action film concentrating on the effects. There is no psychology, only action and intrigue, no matter how well it is done.