Very well executed

Brilliant and touching

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

The first must-see film of the year.

It's an undisputed fact that Hollywood makes an abundance of WWII movies. Breakthrough contains a mixture of battle scenes, conspiracy plots, and German-American allies, but overall, it doesn't really work.Curd Jurgens once again plays Richard Burton's commanding officer, as he did eighteen years earlier in Bitter Victory. He tells Burton of his involvement in a plan to assassinate Hitler, and requests he let the Americans in on the plan as well, so that they can negotiate surrender terms. Burton meets with Robert Mitchum on the American side, and when Mitchum reports back to his boss, Rod Steiger, Steiger is less than trusting of the German informant. Who's the German informant? Oh yeah, Richard Burton. He may be a wonderful, handsome actor, but he just can't do accents.If this plot interests you, you might want to give the movie a try, but it probably won't end up being your favorite war movie. The pacing is a little off, and it doesn't try very hard to be suspenseful.

"Steiner - Das Eiserne Kreuz, 2. Teil" is a sequel to the first movie starring James Coburn and Maximilian Schell. Here the central character is played by Richard Burton (who died 5 years later already) and he gets lots of help from other names that are known in Hollywood including Academy Award winner Rod Steiger. Also some of the characters and actors from the first film reappear.The good thing i can say about this film is that it is not worse than the first as many say. The bad thing is that I did not find the first film particularly captivating either. There is lots of war sequences, screaming and bomb explosions. The film also includes many historic references to wars and battle but also to historically relevant happenings such as the Hitler assassination attempt or the forced suicide that similarly happened to Rommel. The music is okay and I especially liked the reference of "Morgen früh, wenn Gott will". No surprise, this is a West German production here, even if director Andrew V. McLaglen is British. On a side-note, he died not too long ago, way into his 90s. Also a big part of the cast is German.Anyway, all in all, I would only recommend this to people who love war movies or really enjoyed the first film. Everybody else won't have too much joy here.

This is a sequel to the very under rated Peckinpah classic CROSS OF IRON . You remember it don't you ? James Coburn as Sgt Steiner getting on the wrong side of Maximillian Schell's Captain Stransky on the Soviet Eastern Front in 1943 . BREAKTHROUGH as it's known in Britain is a film trying to market itself as a sequel and I'm afraid if it resembles anything it probably resembles a plot device in DOCTOR WHO called regeneration where a Timelord can turn in to the same character with a completely different physical appearance and personality . In the case of Steiner he was last seen as being a cynical character with a strong resemblance to James Coburn who suddenly looks like a much respected stage actor from Wales who's slumming it in a not very good movie . Strangely enough Captain Stransky is also a Timelord . I suppose that's an advantage if you've got several million soldiers in the Red Army who want payback for having their families strung up with piano wire There are a couple of good battle sequences at the start of BREAKTHROUGH but if you've seen CROSS OF IRON you'll instantly know where these scenes were stolen from . You also can't help noticing a bizarre lack of continuity to these scenes . Steiner you remember was a soldier's soldier , he might be fighting for a murderous regime but his loyalty was to his men not to the regime and for some strange reason he is now wearing a dress uniform on the front line and these's not even a speck of dust on his uniform . Maybe his clothes can regenerate after every battle with the Soviets ? You can't fail to notice how crap he is in a battle either . He's given an order to blow up a tunnel . Arrives at he tunnel , staggers down the tunnel no doubt looking for the nearest drinks cabinet , staggers alongside a Soviet tank , drops a grenade in the tank , and gets back in to his truck looking for the nearest bar . All he had to do was connect a wire to a plunger and blow the tunnel up which seems beyond his capabilities . In fact if this is the standard of the average Wehrmacht soldier the Soviets must be glad they didn't have to fight any Italian conscriptsI'm being very kind here because I awarded BREAKTHROUGH four out of ten on its own merits - not as a sequel to CROSS OF IRON in which case it would have been awarded minus points . It is a totally disjointed film especially where editing is concerned where the story jumps around from location to location with little rhyme or reason with the big name cast realising they're just doing it for the money . It says a lot when its predecessor was directed by someone suffering from intense substance abuse and was a hundred times better than this

I posted a review on the 1950 Breakthrough movie page as I didn't see it right away on the page with movies having Breakthrough in the title. It makes sense now that this was a rather low budget European production. It's not a bad movie but not a great one either. With Mitchum and Burton, I'm surprised it was this obscure. Anyway, without rehashing a plot synopsis all over again, it centers around the impending defeat of the Nazi's around the time of D-Day. It's basically a subplot concerning an effort by some of Hitler's generals trying to bump him off and negotiate a cease-fire with advancing Allied and Soviet forces before Germany is completely defeated and occupied. Not a stirring epic by any means, but no worse than a lot of John Wayne's stuff either.