One of the best films i have seen

Just so...so bad

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This decade or so, Norway has created several series depicting life and events during WW II in Norway, under German annexation, but still different way than in e.g. Central or Eastern Europe. But still, people had to make hard choices, and very often you were between rock and hard place, trying to see/predict a bigger picture and "sniff" potential outcomes. Kampen om tungtvannet gives a broad overview, through different angles and participants, of a successful, yet controversial operation (thus, in my opinion, the UK title The Saboteurs is not felicitous), with many real episodes and characters, performed by good character actors (more as a team, no one really sticks out unnecessarily). It is also to my liking that characters of different nationals were played by respective representatives, so different languages heard are always correct and without accent. Well, the run of scenes is not always smooth, some of them are excessive and tensions are sometimes fading, but still - this series is worth watching, at least for Northern Europeans interested in the events during WW II not commonly known.

After watching this, I mentioned to a friend of mine with a degree in physics that Heisenberg really was compromised working for the Germans during the war. He corrected me and suggested I read "Heisenberg's War" by Thomas Powers. Thank goodness, I did. It's an excellent book, and sets the record straight about what Heisenberg did and didn't do, and did and didn't think, during the war.The miniseries show him trying to dazzle the German military with the destructive potential of his nuclear research, and it shows him working diligently on developing a bomb. What Powers shows, though, is that Heisenberg and the scientists who worked closely with him tried in various ways to discourage the Nazis from pursuing a bomb. And they were successful. After a critical meeting with Speer in 1943, in which Heisenberg emphasized all the problems and pointed out that a bomb, even if it could be developed, would take too long to be used in the war, bomb research stopped, and nuclear research was aimed at a reactor or "energy machine." The Heisenberg group were so horrified by the idea of an atomic bomb that they even signaled to scientists outside Germany that Germany was not working on a bomb, hoping to prevent a world of nuclear weapons. (This was misunderstood by many distrustful Allied scientists, who feared Heisenberg was trying to stop their work so that he could proceed without competition on his own.)So enjoy the series, but please don't do as I did and take it as factual about Heisenberg's participation in a German atomic bomb program. I suppose that part of the story was added to crank up the excitement and drama.Incidentally, after the destruction of the Norwegian hydro/heavy water plant and the sinking of the ferry carrying the heavy water, Germany's was completely crippled in its supply of heavy water, never to recover.

The true story of one of the greatest saboteur-actions of WWII is made with great attention to detail, but sadly with less attention to it's script and characters. The plot, which if had been handled correctly, could have been nerve-racking. However, the suspense, or rather, lack thereof makes this mini-series a rather tedious affair. The dialogue suffers from the same condition as the vast majority of Norwegian cinema and television; it's pompous, stiff and unnatural. The same can be said about the acting, where almost every character with a speaking part behaves as if they were on stage in a theater - the worst examples are Stein Winge and Frank Kjosås who are a downright painful to watch. The Heisenberg character is the only one really interesting one, but the show fails to really dig into him. A shame, really, because he had enormous dramatic potential. The other characters are pretty much one-dimensional and fails miserably to gain much, if any sympathy. The by far most useless character on the show is Julie Smith, a caricature of a Briton which seemingly only purpose to the plot is a dull romantic interest and pulling off political correct lines about the horrors of war, which seems out of place in a 1940' setting. A note about cinematography: There are a few shots which are pretty impressing, namely the ones in the skiing-scenes. Other than that, many shots are almost burned out, the London-scenes in particular. At the same time it's shot in digital HD, which in a period-piece makes the show look fake and constructed. Summarizing, this show could have been really good with a better developed script, a better cast ensemble, and a director who could paint this picture with a steadier hand.

This is a miniseries about the German efforts to create the first nuclear bomb as well as the Allied effort to put a stop to it. Much of the film is set in Norway, as it was the center for Nazi deuterium production. Because of this, the series is in Norwegian, English and German (with a tiny bit of French). While it might not sound that interesting, it is--provided you are patient and give the programs a chance. My only reservations are minor. First, although it's stylish, the shaky cam is a STUPID idea and I have no idea why it's used throughout the show. I watched it on a very large screen TV and it practically induced motion sickness. Second, the CGI of the B-17s was rather poor. Eight year old episodes of "Dogfights" look better and more realistic. Still, with excellent acting, an engaging script and a nice history lesson, it's well worth seeing.By the way, some of what occurs in the show can also be seen in the excellent Kirk Douglas film "The Heroes of Telemark"--and is mostly covered in episode 6 of the series.