The War I Knew (2014)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

After a few days of watching back to back WW1 and WW2 films both blockbuster and independent, I eventually got down my list to The War I Knew.I wish I never knew this film existed!From the very start the script and acting are cheesy, wooden and what you'd expect from a high school drama group, and a bad one at that.I'm not even being picky about the uniforms, weapons or the landscape chosen for the filming. I'll give them some slack on that front as these things cost money. But to get the colour or consistency of blood is one of the easiest and cheapest things to do, I'll give you a head start! it's not one shade of pink or looks like coloured water.The acting and the script come across as a mixture of a really bad episode of Dad's Army meets a Carry On film and then all of a sudden they try acting with some seriousness and grit...to be honest, I've felt more real emotion from a episode of the teletubbies when there's no tubby toast.If they intended to show respect to those who fought in the war then they did the complete opposite. No group of soldiers, behind enemy lines would jump up in the air shouting and whooping, high fiving each other after shooting a German soldier.This should really be in a spoof comedy genre just so viewers know to avoid it.

A great film, and a great cast, about kids ,most of whom had never been away from home before their basic training, we forget the youngsters that were parachuted in and lost behind enemy lines and the fact that some of them never got back. Have jut read a couple of previous reviews that seem quite negative, and just wanted to try to pull the storyline to pieces, quite amazing considering the film is based on true events. I strongly advise that you trust the Canadian film festival which awarded it the Rising star award, the Palm beach film festival and the London independent film festival and watch it yourself. If we want a film industry in Great Britain, it's in our hands. Otherwise knock yourself out with Revenant.

I you expect all the fear and wondrous suspense this kind of plot/theme could bring you, you will be largely disappointed. A journey like this could well have been an emotionally terrifying personal experience, yet it became a continuous parade of semi humorous and would be heroic encounters by a bunch of unyielding shallow characters, which left me totally unsatisfied and - after a while - starting to skip scenes. I applaud any attempt to get a movie project together - not a easy task and I must say that technically this movie has a nice continuity, but, nothing gets to me more than having to listen to well-meaning attempts at speaking a foreign language that fail miserably. At least hire real Germans and French or use native voice overs to do the job. What also sort of perplexed me was the lack of realism. In a particular scene, for example, our heroes are sharpshooting moving German targets from quite a distance - one shot - one hit... I must admit never having seen the end of the movie - I could not come up with a good excuse to stay with it.

I love a good war movie but unfortunately this isn't one.From the opening sequence's where the British "Para's" are about to make a suicidal attack I could tell this was a poorly researched piece of film. The whole production is full of glaring historical mistakes that set the film up to be a massive failure.British Paratroopers wearing R.E.M.E blouses, brodie helmets and using American issued rifles.... 5 minutes on Wikipedia could have saved this productions team some embarrassment and myself 15 minutes of my life I can never get back.1/10