If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Admirable film.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Weak title for a strong second world war-time drama set in a small Dutch town occupied by the German Army in early 1945. The plot centres on a young teenage boy, just on the cusp of manhood, whose curiosity and growing wish to contribute to the war effort begins to lead him into trouble, especially as his father is the conciliatory town mayor. When a young British fighter-pilot's plane comes down just outside the town and he has to kill an investigating enemy soldier on patrol, young Theo determines to track him down and lead him to safety.Realistically shot in the grey, cold winter time, the story probably includes a bit too much clichéd action which makes the twists in the tale somewhat predictable when they come. In no particular order these involve the boy's relationship with a newly-arrived uncle sympathetic to the Dutch Resistance movement, his nurse sister's burgeoning relationship with the baby-faced young Brit and his tricky relationship with his father in whom he is disappointed at his apparent cooperation with the Germans. The movie also inserts a number of nail-biting moments of near-discovery, treachery and last-minute attempted rescues, possibly too many for the story to bear in its running-time and still seem true-to-life. There's a mild rites-of-passage undertow to events as the young boy's sexual desires awaken, courtesy of a handy peephole in his upstairs room when his family put in a young girl and her family, a set of pornographic playing cards and finally, mist blatantly, when his sister gets together with the pilot.The final scene of heroic escape is again a bit too exaggerated for my taste as is the boy's overcoming his natural aversion to guns until provoked too far, but for all my caveats, it's a fast-moving, exciting and gripping story, very well-acted by most of the leads, only the young British actor playing the pilot seems too lightweight in his portrayal.I see this movie won several awards in its native Holland and I can understand why. It's a good movie which might have worked a bit better for me with a few less climactic scenes which tend to overpower the narrative and seem like an unnecessary concession to Hollywood action movie conventions.

Sloppy story; German troops intent on finding a downed Brit pilot and are unsuccessful day after day in the forest where the pilot's been hiding.But the bro and his sister make multiple unobserved daylight trips. (And the moron Germans fail to connect bicycle tracks to a hideaway.) Several times Michiel and/or Erica just drive along the road and find Jack. Screenwriter never heard of hypothermia? Twice people fall into frigid water without any apparent physical harm being done. But then again, there was never any weather cold enough to cause peoples breaths to fog up when they spoke. Plenty of electricity in hero house as well as heat....during wartime yet. Martijn Lakemeier (Michiel) not a bad actor but limited: After seeing his father murdered, hours and days later, he seems unaffected by the memory. Where's the trauma? Jack the pilot way, way too young for the part. My goodness, he's supposed to be a fighter pilot. The botched ferry ambush. Young Jack just knows that something's not right. Where does that instinct come from? And what about the 10 or 12 German riflemen who couldn't hit anything from the far bank? Speaking of the ferry ambush, if the Germans had been tipped off why wasn't there a squad or too on the side of the river where the ferry was tethered? Later on, the horse and buggy can't be overtaken by several German army vehicles. Plus more poor marksmanship including a machine gun shooting from about 100' away. Then the single most absurd thing in the movie: Jack suddenly becomes a championship rodeo performer and while the Germans are driving with their brakes on their vehicles, he jumps onto the horse and pulls Michiel after him. Later, the pursuers not that far away, Caesar is euthanized and the barely muffled shot fails to bring the soldiers to their quarry. Uncle Ben has kept his German sympathies a secret from his brother the mayor. And is stupid enough to keep incriminating evidence in the cheap suitcase? Jack is in the house only for a few hours, is being sought and yet takes the time to have sex with the sister, Erica. Folks, is that a reasonable priority? (No locks on her bedroom door either.) Jack's extremely nasty leg wound seems to heal overnight and there's no sign of a limp or any weakness in the leg. (Able to scale the bottom of a steel bridge like a trapeze artist under the very nose of yet another group of dim Germans.) My final comment is that this movie trivializes some very nasty things that happened in the Netherlands. TV Movie of the Week? Not really since occasionally some of them were not bad.

"Winter in Wartime" is not your typical "war" film full of guns, blood, and death. It is also not at all boring, like some war films sometimes can be. This one focuses on a boy who gracefully ages in front of our eyes in times of war, something I have never seen before in a war film. Very well done, moving story that you are highly involved in emotionally.Martijn Lakemeier and Jamie Campbell Bower both take your breath away on screen. This is a film no one talks about for Jamie, but it is definitely one of his best and most important pieces of work.You will find yourself yelling at your screen routing for the leads in this foreign masterpiece.Breakaway Daily www.breakawaydaily.com

WINTER IN WARTIME (Oorlogswinter) is a stunning and intensely involving film that explores the damages war inflicts on all those involved. It is based on the life of Dutch author Jan Terlouw whose novel by the same name reflects the fact that the author spent five harrowing years under Nazi occupation of Holland in WW II: it has been sensitively and successfully adapted for the screen by Mieke de Jong, Paul Jan Nelissen and writer/director Martin Koolhoven. The title of the film commands every aspect of the story - the colors of a nearly black and white cinematography, the cold atmosphere that intensifies the desperation of war and of coming of age and the bleak aftermath of a war torn country.The time is January 1945. Michiel Van Beusekom (and impressive debut by Martijn Lakemeier) is 13 years old, facing the usual stresses of coming of age accentuated by the fact that his village is occupied by Nazi soldiers. Michiel's father Johan (Raymond Thiry) is the town's Bürgermeister (mayor) and attempts to pacify the Nazis whenever possible to protect his town - a fact that Michiel finds disgusting, as though his father was a Nazi sympathizer. Despite this disparity in viewing the atmosphere in the town, Michiel and Johan have a tender relationship as well. There is a crash of a British RAF plane just outside the town and Michiel and his friends inspect the plane, taking souvenirs, and then finding that the pilot Jack (Jamie Campbell Bower - now King Arthur in the television series Camelot) survived but is wounded. Michiel and Jack become friends and Michiel brings his sister Erica (Melody Klaver) who is a nurse to tend to the leg wound Jack incurred as he parachuted to safety. Erica and Jack form a relationship beyond nurse/patient status and Jack gives Michiel a package that is to be sent to England.In the midst of the action Michiel's favorite uncle Ben (Yorick van Wageningen) arrives and moves in with the family: he is apparently hiding from the Nazis and becomes Michiel's confidant in his care of the British pilot. Michiel thus becomes a part of the resistance movement and when the Nazis discover a dead comrade (a Nazi killed by Jack when he crashed landed) they intensify their search for traitors. Michiel works to help Jack escape, but someone must pay for the death of a Nazi soldier and it is the revelation of the family's surprising response that brings the film to a nail-biting close. The secrets of who is honest and who is a traitor become apparent. Michiel has become the hero of the story but at a very high price - the price of human conflict that war demands and receives.The cast is thoroughly solid and it is refreshing to note that the humanistic sides of both the Dutch villagers and the Nazi occupiers are made evident instead of the usual bad guy/good guy stereotypes. This is another fine movie about WW II and the effects of that heinous time on the youth who survived it. Highly recommended. In Dutch and German and English with English subtitles.Grady Harp