So much average

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Claus M. Pedersen leads his Danish troops in Afghanistan. Back at home, his wife struggles to raise their three children by herself. Claus helps treat a village girl and her family becomes a target for the Taliban. Claus' men get pinned down and he calls in an airstrike. He is charged for the deaths of eleven civilians.The action on the ground feels documentary-real. Everything else feels less compelling. The court proceedings lack tension. It's pretty straight forward with a non-surprise twist. The court case needs something special. It's too reserved to be exceptional. It tries to state the complexity of war but it doesn't have the complexity of storytelling.

I probably would never have heard about this Danish film if it weren't for its inclusion in the nominations at the Oscars, I was hoping it would be a good one. Basically company commander Claus Michael Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk) and his men are stationed in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. Meanwhile back in Denmark, Claus' wife Maria (Tuva Novotny) is trying to hold everyday life together, with a husband at war and three children missing their father. The soldiers are caught in heavy crossfire during a routine mission, without proper Intel, Claus makes the decision to call in an airstrike to save his men. Claus is sent back home following this mission, and charged foe killing eleven men by the airstrike, the grave consequences of these accusations cause him and his family to be shaken. Claus explains in court that this decision was a critical requirement while they were under attack, one of the men defending Claus gives a false statement, meaning he is acquitted by the judge and co-committee based on the evidence, Claus is allowed to stay with his wife and kids. Also starring Søren Malling as Martin R. Olsen, Dar Salim as Najib Bisma, Charlotte Munck as Lisbeth Danning, Dulfi Al-Jabouri as Lutfi "Lasse" Hassan and Alex Høgh Andersen as Anders. It is a simple story of a military troop fighting the Taliban and protecting civilians, and the commander accused of committing a war crime, I will be honest and say that having to read subtitles at the same time as the action, I lost my way a few times, but overall I know it was an interesting enough war drama. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. Worth watching, in my opinion!

It's another movie that exploits Soldiers, that may sound harsh, but it's true. A War tugs at our sympathy for those who give their lives to fight for our freedom.The movie is about Claus, a commander of a danish army unit in Afghanistan. He's a man who has to make tough command calls, calls that alter the faith of the men who are under his command and the people he came to protect. At the same time, his wife is at home trying to keep the fort held down taking care of their three children while he's on tour.A War does have it's unique quality when Claus is put on trail for his command choices. This part slightly makes it a different story from all the rest of the support our troops messages I've seen in other recent pictures.Otherwise, it reminds me of Hurt Locker, as the quality of production was superb, over a well orchestrated narrative. But the movie does have the advantage of being about a hot topic, our troops. I would definitely recommend for everyone to see A War, it is a good story about the family one leaves behind for the family he received when in the military and how though that can be on someone, and it's well done.

Krigen (A War)Krigen centres around Commander Klaus Michael Petersen as he serves in Afghanistan. At the same time as this his wife (Maria) and children are followed as she deals with the struggles of being a single parent as your other half is risking his life to preserve the peace thousands of miles away. Having some time to reflect has lead me to conclude that this is one of the best and truest dramas I have seen in a long time. A lot of this is down to the writing, Tobias Lindholm for me is one of the best dramatic writers working at the minute. It just feels so real and genuine, and the normalcy makes the situations where it's really dramatic have even more of an impact. Lindholm's directing also lends itself to this 'realism' as a lot of it is done with handhelds instead of steady cams. The performances are fantastic across the board, however I can't really point anyone out in particular, not in a negative way but more, again because of the writing. No actor gets this meaty, grandiose dialogue because in real life nobody does that, it just all feels real. There are moments when you really feel the emotions going through the characters. Very early on - and this isn't really a spoiler - but there's a death in the regiment and one of the departed's squad mates is struggling to come to terms with this and their involvement in Afghanistan as a whole. This leads on to another point I was pleasantly surprised with, to do with the plot. There's been a lot of talk in recent years about how we're not being told about misconducts in the Afghanistan and soldiers are the bad guys but this, it never strays into that, rather depicts decisions made in the moment - decisions that none of us wouldn't do ourselves. To me anyway, I found how that was told strangely refreshing. Also something I want to touch on is the sound, or lack of it in this case. There is very little background score which is really effective when it comes to drama and I wish more filmmakers would do this.I'm not lying when I say that I'm struggling to find anything bad to say about this film, possibly the switching back and forth between Claus and his family may be slightly jarring for some, taking you out of it a bit, but I really don't know how that could have been fixed without taking that early character building stuff with Maria and co. out, something I'm really glad they didn't.Looking this up on IMDb I saw that Tobias Lindolm was also the man responsible for one of my favourite foreign films 'The Hunt', which really didn't surprise me as that also was also really effective in telling a down-to-earth story. Danish cinema feels like something of a hidden gem as not a lot talk about it, yet the standard of filmmaking is so good! I don't really know if I think this is better as 'The Hunt' got me really emotional which this didn't as much, but anyway if I had to give it a score I'd say a solid 9 Danish Pastries out of 10.