[Closed] A Bridge too far- the best made war film ever?

Not sure how I could have forgotten this, but I second "Come and See" - it's considered by some to be the best war film ever made. Up there with Schindlers List with its matter of fact brutality.

I don't know how factual it is but I found Empire of The Sun pretty moving when I was younger. I also enjoyed The Pianist. Both dealing with the more human side of war.

[i]But if you can't back it up or justify then what's it worth?[/i]

Justify? Back up? Your taste? 😆

DezB

Justify? Back up? Your taste?

The thread title is "best war film ever", as opposed to " I like this film". The difference is subtle, I can see why you would have a hard time with it.

Have I missed someone claiming Escape To Victory?

American Sniper reminds if the work we were doing in Northern Ireland, lots of patrols, searches, massive operations to protect much smaller groups of workers

Then you need to see the BBC film "Contact"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088949/

Bridge over the river Kwai
Where Eagles Dare
Dr Strangelove (it is totally a war movie)
Rambo first blood
The Eagle has landed (although the book is better)
Operation Crossbow
The Dirty Dozen
Etc etc, I could go on

spursn17 - Member

IMO 'Fury' was a load of old poo! 4 Shermans (Ronsons!) charging over open ground towards a Tiger? Easy meat for an 88mm.

Um, did you maybe miss the bit where it takes 3 of them out and damages the 4th? And it's all at fairly close range, reducing the advantage- it ends up at point blank. But also, 2 of the Shermans in the scene are 76mm variants, and 2 are diesels- so not Ronsons, and the tiger's a mk1.

TBH the main problem with that scene was the low rates of fire.

How aboot Hamburger Hill.

TBH the main problem with that scene was the low rates of fire.

LOL I love this place

But yeah, I mean that's why Pearl Harbor was so shit - the roll and climb rates were totally off! 😀

Not seen Fury though, but didn't the anti-tiger tactics effectively amount to charging them in groups of four, hoping that one tank was able to flank and get a side shot?

Tom_W1987 - Member

Not seen Fury though, but didn't the anti-tiger tactics effectively amount to charging them in groups of four, hoping that one tank was able to flank and get a side shot?

Yup- well, there's 4 of them passing through the area, not expecting any real resistance, but they run into an ambush and need to get past it. So they cover it in smoke and charge in, because they've not got many other options. Someone makes a point of saying "there's no armour in the area" earlier on.

(2 of them have the 76mm gun so they wouldn't really have needed the rear shot, they could poke through the front of a tiger at these ranges. Though that's a bit finnicky on detail, they used real tanks so it's a total mixed bag of whatever they could find.)

It all runs into cinematography too, it'd be dead boring watching the tanks sling shells at each other from 2km apart, they obviously want to get lots of movement and closeness on screen.

It's a pretty interesting film, I enjoyed it- it's never shooting for veritas though, and the later stages can be taken in different ways- some people thought it went too Commando comic, others thought it went intentionally unreal (not unrealistic but unreal; it takes on a totally nightmarish, fairly stylised feel, there's a theory that they're all already dead and in purgatory, another that you're watching the myth not the reality...) So it's not really comparable to, say, your Das Boots.

Done right, I think a long range tank engagement could be quite nerve-racking for an audience - in a Das Boot kind of way.

Probably. But in this case, it'd have led to 4 burning shermans, and they'd have to rename the film Zorn and have it follow the Tiger around instead.

Sounds awesome, yanks burning to death, the Horst Wessel song, Schnapps and ****in tigers? What's not to love about that?

jimjam - Member
DezB
Justify? Back up? Your taste?

The thread title is "best war film ever", as opposed to " I like this film". The difference is subtle, I can see why you would have a hard time with it.

POSTED 20 HOURS AGO #

Since there is no definitive way to decide which is "The best war film ever" then all people can offer is an opinion based answer . If you really need to take issue with somebody then you could do worse than pick on those who have mentioned half a dozen films as the best ever . Numbers we can quantify , opinions we can't

Sounds awesome, yanks burning to death, the Horst Wessel song, Schnapps and **** tigers? What's not to love about that?

Panzerleid surely?

But yeah, I mean that's why Pearl Harbor was so shit - the roll and climb rates were totally off!

Let's not forget the following:

The sound producers working on Pearl Harbour overdubbed the sound of the Rolls Royce Merlin engines during the Battle of Britain scene with those of Alison engines, an act of sacrilege unparalleled in cinema history. It even tops the insinuation that an American pilot actually won the Battle of Britain on our behalf.

Oh, then there's this line: "I beg you ma'am, don't take my wings".

The film had many other problems of course, but those two should damn it to obscurity forever.

I watched Kajaki yesterday based on reviews on here. Wow. A simple, short, but utterly absorbing film.