Company K (2004)

I love this movie so much

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I almost wrote this review before I saw the movie . . Something along the lines of " Oh dear trust Uncle Sam to make a film on how they turned up to save the Limeys in World War One etc etc " What I should have done is remember the old phrase " Never assume anything because it makes an ass out of you and me " . That said it does suffer from the low budget independent film look and feel and watching the early scenes you'd be totally forgiven for thinking this was a dreary TVM . It's painfully obvious the budget didn't stretch to filming somewhere , anywhere that might resemble the Western Front in 1917-18 where a few short years of war had turned the landscape in to something resembling a muddy version of the surface of the Moon . This has led to some people on this page to dismiss COMPANY K out of hand . If you're expecting epic battle scenes then this isn't the film for you but does manage to make anti-war statements better than a lot of films with ten times the budget I've never read the book and some people might suggest that the film suffers from sticking too rigidly to the book with its episodic nature and its character-centric vignettes but I disagree . All too often in war films the characters are hidden behind uniforms and helmets and it's difficult to keep track of who is who hence we get movies like THE LONGEST DAY and THE THIN RED LINE where a host of household names appear in cameos simply to remind the audience who the character is . The storytelling technique of COMPANY K negates the need for a big name cast and the obvious use of exposition pointing out who the character is , we're introduced to the m instantly via on screen caption and his works very well . It might not be subtle but this isn't a subtle film and deals with the usual war is hell , something it never hints at in the opening . Let me just repeat that the opening scenes give the impression you're going to be watching an anti-septic PG certificate made for television production which isn't what happens . It's not explicit war porn either but concentrates of the psychological horrors of war and was actually quite shocked at some of the on screen happenings carried out by the US Marine Corps . In war movies Americans are always the good guys and behave exemplary no matter the provocations no matter what and they're always real men untouched by any horror but not in this movie . Finally a word on the musical score by Craig McConnell and Donald Stark which can be criticised as being on one hand intrusive and manipulative but is very effective and atmospheric

Sorry, gang, but this film, "Company K" was awful! Lets start with a forced and contrived plot line, complete with banal and clichéd dialog, delivered in wavy line readings, by wooden actors, playing the usual array of depressing stereotypical Infantry soldiers! This movie, shot in Pennsylvania,looks about as much like a World War One Battlefield as the Mall of America!There have been too many ultra-realistic War Movies made in the last twenty years to allow this dud, with it's back yard production effects, to even appear to be authentic! The actors look unsure of their roles, as Marines, especially when maneuvering on a battle field! The special effects is bush league, at best, with wimpy looking gore,and tomato ketchup blood! "No Man's Land" looks like the poorly maintained yard of that cranky old "difficult" guy, in some suburban neighborhood! Grass didn't grow near the trench system!I love the fake 1903 Springfield Rifles! Somewhere, an American Legion Chapter is missing its Honor Guard Rifles! If the German Army on World War One had fought like the Germans in this movie, the war would have been over in a month!Forget this Turkey, folks! It gives "Fake" a bad name!

I have no doubt the book is one of the greats about the first world war, sadly this film doesn't do it justice. The episodic nature of the movie, while faithful to the style of the book, really doesn't work that well, preventing us from getting to really know the characters. The episodes we see tend to leave things unexplained, or leave us feeling we'd like to see or know more about what happened, and this results in the film being ultimately unsatisfying. The war itself, which was known by all protagonists as being fought in the most appallingly squalid, dirty, lice-ridden and horrific conditions, is shown here being fought in immaculately clean and neat trench systems that look like they have just been built in a B&Q depot, the corrugated iron sheets forming the trench sides are gleaming, pristine and new, the duck-boards and ground is neatly swept and tidy, and the men and their uniforms far too clean and smart to seem even remotely realistic. We are expected to believe that men are traumatised and mentally scarred for life by the conditions of war, and yet it all looks like it's set in a paintballing arena with no excess dirt or mud to be seen! It tries to be a good film, but somehow misses, and apart from the lead character, everyone else in the movie was just a cut-out character that you just couldn't feel anything for........ there really have been so many better movies on this subject that this one pales in comparison... sorry folks..

I write this review on Memorial Day 2008 and there's lots of talk on television and elsewhere about the sacrifice of soldiers in Iraq. In my opinion, those young women and men are giving their lives and their mental stability to an unnecessary cause created to satisfy the ego of a madman. But what about the soldiers in the Great War, the War to End All Wars - World War I? Those soldiers are the subject of Company K.William March was the penname for William Edward Campbell who, in 1933, published Company K which was hailed as a masterpiece by critics and writers alike and has been referred to as the American view of the hopelessness and brutality - just as effective and shattering as Erich Maria Remarque's classic anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front. March was a popular novelist and story writer of the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Today, his most well-know novel is The Bad Seed.March was a reclusive man who was hard to get to know. He suffered a number of nervous breakdowns - as they were called in his day - that were surely post traumatic stress episodes due to his experiences as a Marine in WWI. He died from a series of heart attacks in 1954 at the height of his writing career.The soldiers in Company K are not the great generals and leaders whose names have gone down in history but are the grunts who actually did the fighting and dying. They are not great heroes but just young men who are trying to survive the madness into which they have been injected. They are not idealized or romanticized. Some do bad things. Some are so scared they run. Some carry out insane orders. Some carry out inhumane orders. Most of those who survive go home to lead normal lives, but there are some who are never able to remove from their minds the horrors of deeds seen or deeds done.The film, Company K is not a great production. It's episodic but in a very choppy way. Is that the fault of the director or the editor? Who knows? But within each episode, the viewer is offered a realistic view of these young men caught in circumstances beyond their control. There is no glory - only guts.There are no well-known actors in this film. All are just good actors who do a good job at showing us all of the aspects of these men thrown together into the snake pit of battle.There are uncountable films about women and men in war. Some are extraordinary while some are really bad. Company K falls somewhere in the middle and it is surely worth a viewing in order to get to know some very human men.