Max Manus: Man of War (2008)

Very best movie i ever watch

the audience applauded

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's 1940. Finland quickly falls to the Nazis. Max Manus is injured fighting the Soviets. After recovering, he and his friends organize to resist. Their carelessness gets Max arrested but he escapes by jumping out of a hospital window. He gets training in Scotland and returns to sabotage against the Germans. He and his comrades are successful at first but are hunted by local Gestapo chief Siegfried Fehmer. Their handler is female agent Tikken. As security is heighten, Max must somehow sink a troop transport ship.It has some good action and some good resistance intrigue. It's also a bit rambling. It's probably a struggle to fit a real life story into a simple Hollywood style thriller. It also could have given Max Manus more of a personal drama during the war. It seems to give him his personal demons only after the war. If that's the real case, this could have started the movie with his modern day demons and then do the movie as a flashback to find the roots.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I walked into this movie knowing almost nothing about Max Manus and only knew somewhat about what he did. I think that might be the key into whether you're going to really enjoy this movie or not. I did like it but it does have problems.In case you don't know Max Manus was one of the best Norwegian Resistance fighters in the second World War. This movie seems to be Chronicling all of that while he must confront his alcoholism and nerve damage. Would this make way for a good movie? In my opinion Hell yes. It would probably make way for one of the best of it's kind but this does have problems.The biggest gripe for me is that the people who made this movie are shoe-horning in a lot of things for a near 2 hour movie. It kind of skips quite a bit. An example is when Max's best friend Gregers dies. That could show some great drama for what he would be going through... In the next scene it's a few months later. Sometimes when this happens it even skips almost a year. I know almost nothing about this guy is there really nothing they could have shown that would have been just as interesting as what we've already seen. I mean they cut from Max escaping Nazi control by crossing to the Swedish border to him getting trained in Scotland almost a year later. You know what I wouldn't have minded it if the time length was extended to three hours or so.I did like how some of the drama was handled though. While this movie does skip over some things I did like how the post-war scene was handled when Tikken and Max are talking when Max says he has no education, no job and no money and therefore has nothing to live for. There are some scenes like that when I did like the way it was handled.I also liked the acting and the cinematography of this movie. All of the cast do a pretty good job at acting the parts and some of the shots are actually quite impressive to look at. In terms of cinematography I guess I enjoyed the flashbacks to Max fighting on the Front Line in Finland the most.So I guess if you want to watch this movie - I think you should do a little homework on this guy before you watch it, he does actually sound like an interesting guy to look up. Some of the scenes are handled pretty well and others aren't. This is a decent movie to watch but I don't think it's as good as people are saying it is.EDIT: Now that I have done some research on the real guy... Why didn't they include some of these events in this film?

I had this for my birthday, and unsurprisingly once again found that a 'Straight to DVD' movie is a hidden gem. Although it starts off a little slow it quickly becomes apparent this is necessary to illustrate the background of each of the protagonists.I was pleased to see it was in the original Norwegian except where necessary, because although I do not speak the language myself I am not a fan of 'Herr Kapitan, vhy are ve speakink English?' style of movie where everyone speaks English regardless of nationality. The subtitles were at times a little obtrusive as you'd end up with the translation and the ordinary title - such as showing location - at the same time.The portrayal of the main characters was superb but none better than that of Max himself. You are drawn throughout the movie along with him from the brash young boy, taking ridiculous risks, to the mature leader of his men in wartime, to the ending with his despair that although peace has come finally to Europe it is too late for so many of his closest friends who didn't live to see it. In this lies the true strength of the movie; it is real. It is not a gung-ho happily ever after story. It portrays war not as it affects countries, but as it *actually* affects those involved, and shows that the effects don't go away just because everyone stopped shooting.

Over 30 years ago a much younger, and pre-Robocop, Paul Verhoeven made the understated and under-appreciated Soldier of Orange. In Max Manus, we see the 'Soldaat van Oranje' resurrected but with Oslo subbing for Amsterdam this time around. And it's a good flick, too. Not great like 'Soldaat', but it will do. Indeed, as an introduction to Norwegian cinema to many, it's a more than decent 'nice to meet you'.Comparison between the two pictures are, and should be, inevitable. After all, they're both about their country's WWII resistance movement, both made by and with native sons, and both try to fill a hole in the swiss-cheese minds of non-native audiences (who will mostly know what the USA, and maybe their own country, did during that time). The opening scenes of each introduce us not just to the main characters, but to their college-boy mischief, their bonhomie, and their profound loyalty - both to their country and to each other. We witness the naive optimism of some, and the courage of all. Meticulous period (and locale) details fill each shot of Max, just like its predecessor. Why, we even get to see another return of the king in the coda (actually, in Orange, it was the queen, Wilhelmina). Here, again, the returning monarch is subdued in his triumph, looking, well, regal, surrounded by his adoring, and recently freed subjects. And flags, lots of flags. You get the idea.The acting is where Max is not 'max'. Although most of the supporting cast is quite excellent, outstanding really, the same cannot be said for our hero Max. Aksel Hennie as MM seems to be able to project only two personas in playing his role: brave and defiant and brave and sensitive. Alas, it's what should have come in between that counts. His love interest, a miscast Agnes Kittelsen (as 'Tikken'), tries hard but winds up convincing only Max, not the audience. And, speaking of love interest, unlike Soldier of Orange where the attraction between the characters was alive and the audience effortlessly empathic, Max Manus, both the movie and the character, never make it clear why he fell for Tikken. Still, at least we understand what their romance had to do with the plot - allegiance to fact, and all that. Indeed, that's infinitely more insight than we get about the totally irrelevant and red-herring-like affair between the movie's arch-villain, the echt evil Nazi - Siegfried Fehmer (played without resort to too much stereotype by Ken Duken). I suspect much plot development in this regard was left on the floor of the cutting room.Before all you Norwegians start throwing rancid herrings at me, please understand my criticism is about the movie, not about your heroes or your history. Before this film, I would have been surprised to hear that most non-Norwegians could utter anything beyond "Quisling" when asked about Norway and WWII. Unfortunately, as nice as it would have been to add "Max Manus" to people's fund of Norse WWII myths and legends, that's going to have to wait a while longer. Let's hope that it's not another 65 years.