Crappiest War Film

[Manotea]

I'll kick off with Von Ryan's Express.

[clarion]

That Pow football one with the professional players in it.  Can't remember the title, but it was embarrassing to watch.

[itsbruce]

That Pow football one with the professional players in it.  Can't remember the title, but it was embarrassing to watch.

Escape to Victory.

Any war film with Ronald Reagan in it.

[pcolbeck]

I'm a big fan of John Wayne in cowboy mode but his Vietnam film "The Green Berets" was execrable.

[The Seldom Killer]

Valkyrie.

It would have been a decent film but the director failed to stop some odious smuggo wandering into shot all the time.

[clarion]

I'm a bif fan of John Wayne in cowboy mode but his Vietnam film "The Green Berets" was execrable.

Oh yes.  It'll be hard to find worse than that shoddy piece of propaganda.

[LEE]

Black Hawk Down.

It was just a load of talking bloody rabbits, most disappointing.

[Torslanda]

Saving Private Ryan.

Technically brilliant but virually plotless and barely believable.

[The Seldom Killer]

Shaving Ryan's Privates.

Technically ebulliant but virtually plotless and barely believable.

FTFY

[bikepacker]

Did anyone see Two Men Went to War   Two Men Went to War (2002) - IMDb

I watched it on TV last year when I wasn’t feeling too well. It is poor film and I thought it was a Dads Army type comedy about two bungling British soldiers looking for action in France. At the end I was amazed to see it was a true story.

[Pingu]

Saving Private Ryan.

Technically brilliant but virually plotless and barely believable.

+1

[geraldc]

Inglourious Basterds.

[Wascally Weasel]

Inglorious Basterds  

Escape from/to Athena (can't remember which and it isn't worth the effort to google)  Contains Roger Moore.  Actually it does have one tiny saving grace, William Holden doing a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo of his character from Stalag 13 (which is a great film).

The Great Escape.

The Boys in Company C:  A not very good Vietnam era film trying very hard to be a mixture of full on war movie and MASH/Catch 22.  It starts really well, in fact so well that Kubrick nicked the opening bit of the film entirely for Full Metal Jacket (including the Gunnery Sergeant, even played by the same actor.  Only difference is he isn't as inventively sweary as he is in FMJ).  The film concludes with a football game between the company and a local ARVN unit which ends in a bloodbath.  It really isn't very good (although the bit where the over the top corrupt ARVN general is grabbing crippled children to use as human shields is memorable).

I'm making it sound better than it is.

Battle Cry:  The book is great (if somewhat cliched) but the film is dreadful.

[Wascally Weasel]

Saving Private Ryan.

Technically brilliant but virually plotless and barely believable.

+1

I hate the modern day bits in it as they are just typical of the "EMOTE NOW! THINK THIS!" leading by the nose that Spielberg often does (never more so than in Schindler's List with the red dress).

If you ignore those bits the film takes on a different character for me - in that the mission they have been given looks even more ridiculous and you watch the remnants of the platoon fragment.  The look that the BAR gunner gives the rest of the platoon when, after finding Ryan they are all listening to his comedy story from back on the farm - it just says "We're getting killed for this dumb hick?".  Stop the film before the modern day bit at the end and hey-presto better ending.  Just my opinion of course and there are still bits that annoy me about it.

[The Seldom Killer]

leading by the nose that Spielberg often does (never more so than in Schindler's List with the red dress).

I don't have a problem with the red dress in Schindlers List.

Given the value of the rest of the film being in black and white, other cinematic devices would have been very problematic to incorporate to illustrate a very pivotal character moment in the storytelling without interrupting the flow of the film or belabouring the issue.

What alternative would you have used.

[itsbruce]

I hate the modern day bits in it as they are just typical of the "EMOTE NOW! THINK THIS!" leading by the nose that Spielberg often does (never more so than in Schindler's List with the red dress).

The worst bit of emotional manipulation in Shindler's List, though, was the final documentary sequence where Spielberg had survivors putting stones onto a memorial to Schindler.  The director was implicitly applying their blessing to his film as well as to Schindler.

[itsbruce]

Given the value of the rest of the film being in black and white, other cinematic devices would have been very problematic to incorporate to illustrate a very pivotal character moment in the storytelling without interrupting the flow of the film or belabouring the issue.

What alternative would you have used.

Point of order: the murder of the child is a dramatic moment but neither the moment nor the character is pivotal (she isn't a character, either, just a cypher).

Many directors of fine black and white films have managed to dramatise moments like this without parlour tricks.

Also unnecessary - and actually mendacious - was having Schindler break down at the end and sob about all the people he hadn't been able to help.  In truth, Schindler just nodded stiffly to Itzhak Stern, got in the car and left.  That would also have been dramatic to shoot but honest.

Nobody really knows why Schindler did what he did.  Even Itzhak Stern can't tell you.  Opinions among the Schindlerjuden are divided and some of them hate him.  Knowing that, Schindler's final scene in the film is worse than fraudulent (and the implicit blessing of the stone-laying documentary scene even more dishonest).

[Bledlow]

Objective, Burma
Merril's Marauders
Pearl Harbor
U-571

I could go on . . .

[Wascally Weasel]

leading by the nose that Spielberg often does (never more so than in Schindler's List with the red dress).

I don't have a problem with the red dress in Schindlers List.

Given the value of the rest of the film being in black and white, other cinematic devices would have been very problematic to incorporate to illustrate a very pivotal character moment in the storytelling without interrupting the flow of the film or belabouring the issue.

What alternative would you have used.

I wouldn't have made it at all, or at least not that particular story in that way.

Terry Gilliam explains better than me the problem I have with some Spielberg movies and the decision to make that particular holocaust story:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/CAKS3rdYTpI&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/CAKS3rdYTpI&rel=1</a>

This doesn't mean I hate everything the guy does, I just don't like the cosy manipulation and I think SL in particular actually diverts you away from confronting the central horrors of the holocaust.  Yes it has shocking parts, horrible parts (the most manipulative and clumsy of these being the red dress I feel), but the film has a resolution and I think it should end differently if the film maker wanted us to confront the issues.

I don't think for a minute Spielberg didn't want us to confront the issues I just disagree with the way he does it.  Other people found it powerful and moving, I just felt differently.

[The Seldom Killer]

Point of order: the murder of the child is a dramatic moment but neither the moment nor the character is pivotal (she isn't a character, either, just a cypher).

I'm aware of the differences between the film and the actual history. However, this film was the telling of a story around a central character, Schindler, and in the telling of that story, be it accurate or otherwise, the murder of the child was pivotal.

I agree with you about the break down scene and the stone laying. In fact there are many other scenes in the film which I think should have been removed or altered in order to make it the better film that it should have been. However, I do not include the red dress among them.

[itsbruce]

Then we're mostly in agreement.  It's a real shame Spielberg let his sentimental side infect the film; for far too many people in the audience, this was a subject they knew almost nothing about.  Given how big an audience it drew, it could have meant so much more if slightly better done.

[mattc]

Then we're mostly in agreement.  It's a real shame Spielberg let his sentimental side infect the film; for far too many people in the audience, this was a subject they knew almost nothing about.  Given how big an audience it drew, it could have meant so much more if slightly better done.

Spielberg is basically an excellent big-budget kids movie-maker. He doesn't possess the subtlety for the bigger issues.

Having said that, I don't think his more adult movies are complete rubbish, and you have to admit that more people learned about Schindler from this movie than would ever watch cheaper movies (probably subtitled) from more grown-up but less powerful directors.

[clarion]

While we're on Spielberg: 1941

[Mr Larrington]

Any fillum which re-writes history to make it look as though the US won the war without any assistance from anyone.  If someone told me there was to be a Hollywood remake of Sink The Bismarck! in which the US Navy, almost certainly played by Ben Affleck, does for said pocket battleship, I should not be at all surprised.

[clarion]

ISTR there was one in which Errol Flynn liberated Burma...