The Resistance Fighter

.. Not as bad as the rating shown by Imdb.

A technically non-sophisticated movie, the director is clearly not going to be remembered for this but it still worthy of a couple of hours of one's time at least to remind us all of the plight of Poland caught, like often before, in the vice grips of larger, predatory countries.

The narrating style could be assimilated to the cartoons that were in vogue after WWII, a sequence of pictures/events trying to capture the various moments of a story without the fluent narration that we could easily expect now but still a solid 7 stars, for both sympathy to the cause and people but also for highlighting an episode of the enormous sacrifice that the Poles suffered.

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.

I was born and lived in Poland until I was 22. Then, in 1989 I left just before the fall of the Berlin wall. This movie presented me with a part of Polish WWII history that was never taught to me by either the socialist state or here in the West, our "allies". This movie makes you think "what if.." and presents a part of history which could be considered by some taboo, something we should not speak of.

The truth is Poland was used as pawn in WWI, promised alliance by the West (twice) and then, abandoned to Soviets when the Polish problem became inconvenient to deal with Stalin. As I said, many "what ifs" were brought by this film in my mind and I would certainly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more beyond the established "history".

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.

It was a great surprise and I recommend to see it to anyone who is interested in history of Second World War. The sceneries and locations are wonderful executed and the cinematography was of very high quality. There are many twists and suspense moments that I never got bored. I don't understand the low ratings here. Kurier is too underrated and merits great attention. All the actors delivered a great job and compliments to the director.8/10.