Forbidden Ground
Forbidden Ground
R | 11 December 2013 (USA)
Forbidden Ground Trailers

Three British soldiers find themselves stranded in No Man's Land after a failed charge on the German Trenches. Set in France 1916.

Reviews
Cubussoli

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

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Steineded

How sad is this?

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LouHomey

From my favorite movies..

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Rosie Searle

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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ausdcp

Really enjoyed this film and I'm not much of a war person. It was a really refreshing take on a moment in our history, focusing on the very personal intimacy of mate-ship among soldiers, as opposed to the fanfare of explosions, gunfire and whiz bang visual effects.It was nice to see a war film that peeked into the lives of the women left at home as well. When I think of the world wars and tragic loss of men involved in the conflict, I must admit I've never contemplated the hardships that women endured back on the home front.This film offers a glimpse into what I've learnt to be an extremely common issue women were faced with whilst their men fought on the front lines. The limited options and primitive medical practices available to women back then are a frightening realisation of how helpless females must have felt living in that era. To have little to no control over their lives, let alone the ability to remedy bad choices is profoundly confronting.A great take on a very sad era.

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Natalie2519

I'm seriously so impressed with the production. There were a lot of explosives and the actors actually performed their own stunts. It's not a huge budget movie but they had done so well for what they had with the limited money and time. The story itself is very heartbreaking.My favorite part of the movie was the prison scene when the character of Wilkins strangling Eve Rose, knowing that Eve was his man's wife who died in his arms during the war and also Eve was the reason why his own wife was dead when he came home. I couldn't breathe while watching the expression on his face and my tears wouldn't stop running. I could feel his pain. It's so heartache and contradictory in the same time. Well done over all!

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John E

Alright attempt for a low budget film never the less it flows more like a TV movie. The character development is very poor, as well as some of the acting in key scenes. The side story of the wife is very corny with an under developed path.The sound track was was an over kill I really felt that they could have backed off a lot I think it was over used.Set aside the horrible British accent. And bad special effect (though I understand on such a tight budget that that the special effects is as good as they could hope for) the film for me lacked any real substance.But good try.

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mecheart

Few films in comparison to the number of those examining other armed human conflicts have provided a look at the hopeless blood soaked, mud clogged trenches of the First World War and fewer still have lent voice to the courage, will and love for their fellow soldiers of the men who followed without question orders which amounted to voluntary mass suicide in a hell scorched land far from the blessed sight of their most beloved.Johan Earl and Adrian Powers have in 'Forbidden Ground' crafted the viewer such a window into one of the darkest periods of the 20th century. Their film movingly throws us into the trenches of the British Army and its portrayal of the raging machine of war as it grounds young terrified men into its only product - something much different than they were before, alive or dead. The film seizes the senses and raises tension from scene to scene.The plot forwards the stories of two British married couples; the men at war while the women walk trancelike, waiting through the motions of a special hell of their own for word that their spouses still live. The two story lines unfold against the backdrop of their individual struggles for survival and preservation of sanity which tragically become more difficult when their lives intersect. Surrounding them all is the War and distance, time and pain of absence.Sergeant Major Arthur Wilkins played by Johan Earl and Corporal Richard Jennings played by Martin Copping are men hardened and desensitized as they are ruined and broken by their years in the maw of combat. Both are fair, natural leaders who care for the men they command, but they've lost their identities, they've forgotten what their lives were like before the War began. Indeed, the surreal daily ballet of carnage their lives have become leaves them with weakening connection to the women they married and eventually sees them becoming brothers in arms trapped in a situation neither will ever completely escape.Grace Wilkins, wife of Arthur played by Denai Gracie and Eve Rose, fiancé or wife of Corporal Jennings are the ones their men left behind. Nightmares of Arthur's rejection of her upon his return plague Grace, and for aid with the condition she faces which could hurt her husband more even than the terrors of war, she feverishly seeks aid and finds its only source in Eve. Eve has suffered her man's absence as much as Grace, and in so genuinely needing to aid her causes irrevocable harm.The film is a war movie, and it is also a tragic drama which explores the consequences of meetings between average people who find themselves already connected in ways they never could have imagined. The historical accuracy of the period is spot on as are the booming, ground churning scenes of battle of which there are several. For the budget available, the film makers did a great job although the continuity and viewer perception of the size of outdoor spaces sometimes feel askew and not to scale.'Forbidden Ground' is a gritty, visceral war film wrapped around a touching story driven by characters with many shades of depth. Their reactions and solutions to the horrible situations they find themselves in is compelling and this viewer found himself only wishing they could get through it all and have the opportunity to heal, together - reunited at last.I highly recommend 'Forbidden Ground' to the fan of war films as World War I remains a blemish on history mostly glossed over by popular fiction. The period equipment, weapons and dress on the battlefield and off are well reproduced, and the actors who portray the interesting characters inhabiting this study of the chilling effects of war on its victims - war makes all of us its victims - are worthy of the viewers time and praise. For most every other mature moviegoer the film is also a worthwhile watch: the tragically intersecting fates of these characters will reach you on some level.8/10

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