It is a performances centric movie

hyped garbage

As Good As It Gets

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

First of all, I'm German and I want to leave out all the stuff about whether it is anti-American or not, because the bombing of the U-Boat Is a fact and the point brought up by some here that it's a movie to ease German conscious is bullshit. Let's just talk about the movie. First problem; it's too long. The arc of suspense is terrible. Next problem: at some points it just tries too hard to be Titanic. Biggest Problem: it's a serious movie, or at least wants to be and should be. But they put two cartoonish, annoying, cliché characters in this movie, which made me hit my head against the wall every time they appeared. I don't care for the fate of a character I hate. The egoistic father, and The "British lady". The fur coat wearing Lady is a walking cliché and by asking every five minutes in the second half where her daughter is and how hard life is she tries to force empathy. But no, she's just not a real person. Nobody on earth would behave like this and if somebody did, everybody would hate her. The leading roles of Ken Duken and Franka Potente are well performed. The general look of the movie is good. But the second half just lacks tension. At some points a solid movie, at some points horrible.

1. The movie focuses on one of a few moments when Germans and Italians could claim moral superiority over Allies during the IIWW. What the movie makers forget and do not show on purpose is why the "heroic" Uboot commander is hunting British merchant ship. He is hunting it in name of no less than Adolf Hitler. The "heroic" crew of Uboot witnessed treatment of (mostly Polish) slaves in Germany and in French ports, with high probability they enjoyed the services of sexual slaves (in 1939-1941 mostly French and Polish) in Kriegsmarine brothels, they used goods stolen from Jews and Poles etc. 2. The villains of the movie are Polish soldiers, who escort Italians. Again it remains unclear where those people come from. It is simple: after fighting in Poland, they left Poland, via Hungary got to France to fight Germans, then some of them fought in Narvik (as a Polish unit), got back to Britain and went to Africa to fight Rommel. Their families got executed and enslaved (Germans executed 15 000 Poles in one place called Piasnica in 1939-40 to name an example). Their sons got sent as slaves to Germany (approx 2 million Polish slaves), their daughters raped. They could nourish certain hate against Axis soldiers. 3.It remains to wait for a movie about Sonderkommando Jewish prisoners, Russian kapos in KZ and heroic SS-men who protect KZ-prisoners from them. There could be one such case - so the movie will be based on facts.It is all about choosing which facts are to be depicted. 4. To put it short: it is an abominable dance on graves because not a minute is devoted to the context of the story.5. The captain of Laconia deserves certain respect but he fought for Nazi Deutschland. Polish, Belorussian, Russian peasants who risked their lives as guerilla fighters had more courage than this idealized Uboot captain. They knew their survival chances were non-existent but they refused to comply.

I will not focus on the qualities of this movie -- just on its unfair anti-American sentiment. It is done in the better tradition of the European cinema. However, I cannot but underrate it for its anti- American sentiments. It shows the Americans trigger-happy backward country bumpkins at the backdrop of the sophisticated moral issues the German skipper of the U-Boat and his British counter parts struggle with. The movie successfully shows the human suffering at war. Yet it seems to me quite preachy at times (the words of the skipper of the Laconia before it sinks, for example.) It is blowing out of proportion the supposedly kind act by the Nazi U-Boat captain. The flat, one- sided portrayal of the Americans came not to show that war can produce stupid mistakes but to juxtapose the Germans and British against the Americans. Let us not forget that this one act of kindness by a German U-boat captain has to be measured against the tons of reckless torpedoing of passenger ships by German submarines during the blockade of the UK in WW2. It was also unrealistic how the US bomber approached the U-boat dropped five bombs then all of a sudden, without sinking the submarine, the chief pilot said "Mission accomplished" and they flew back (supposedly low on fuel). Not sure how true to the historical fact this is but it is proper to remind the British and German directors that regardless of all the Nazi-British comradery shown in the film the actual goal of the 3rd Reich was to subject all nations to its ideological and military superiority. This does become clear to an extent in the film but the attempt to water down the historical role of the various parties in the war diminishes the film's potential.

I was very much looking forward to this, as the adverts for it suggested that it could be an excellent little historical drama, the like of which the BBC regularly produce.I could not have been more wrong.I'm aware that such productions are always subject to budget constraints, but the CGI-effects were distinctly dodgy - I was very much aware that they were CGI. The clothing worn by the cast was another severe let down. It was often too pristine, in some cases ill-fitting, and occasionally utterly unauthentic for the 1940s. The greatest issue with the production however lay in the script and the acting. The acting was often wooden, and unbelievable. The script was clunky, and too 'modern' in language and attitudes held by the protagonists - the production I saw did not feel like it was portraying the 1940s. The script also suffered for concentrating on too many characters, which resulted in my not being emotionally engaged and actually caring whether they survived the sinking or not (this wasn't helped by very few of them being played as particularly pleasant people). Another particular problem was the number of simply unbelievable events that are shown throughout the film - the 'crossing the equator' scene in the U-Boat suggests a SERIOUS lack of discipline aboard, and the pep-talk by one of the U-Boat officers to the victim of the crew's bullying about being a team-player is very 21st century. The cringe-worthy performance of 'home on the range' or some such western song by the awkward British officer was very odd, and did not feel very 1940s at all - and I did find myself wondering where he got the costume from on a boat in the middle of a war? The portrayal of the Polish troops as nothing but violent thugs was a gross misrepresentation and offensive.All in all, I was severely disappointed, feeling that the bravery and sacrifice shown on both sides during the real sinking of the SS Laconia was totally ignored for an over-dramatic, literally unbelievable piece of hokum that looked and felt like it was a poorly-written 21st century take on one of the saddest story's of the war.