Stalingrad

Rating:
Summary: Complete rubbish
Review: Das Boot had a couple of nonsense scenes but generally was well done and reasonably accurate. I suspect a number of people will buy Stalingrad in the belief its of similiar quality.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. This travesty seems to obsessed with rewriting history which I'll get to later.

Lets first deal with the....battle scenes. One scene which takes place in a factory shows a badly wounded russian staggering towards a frightened german in a strange herman munster fashion. The german riddles him with bullets from his pistol but cannot stop his progress. Then another german comes from behind and kills the russian with an axe. He then stutters "I just [urinated] my pants". The other german responds "So did I". The whole scene is like something from a really bad b-horror film. There are several such scenes. The highlight battle scene is a confrontation between a small number of german troops dug in the snow and a dozen or so russian tanks. This scene is like most of the rest in that its just not believable. Good battle scenes might give this flick some value but its not there.

The creator apparently has watched to many Oliver Stone films and doesn't believe historical accuracy is important. For example, the film portrays the upper echelon of the german army as living the high life in some cozy hideaway while the grunts freeze their you know what off. Actually, almost every German general in WW2 right up to army group level went onto the battlefield himself. A shocking number of generals and officers were killed in action.

Finally, this film has all the usual new age copouts. A german who behaved quite rationally unexpectedly commits suicide in one scene because, you know, war is insanity.

Rating:
Summary: A balanced account of the German Soldier in WWII
Review: It seems to me that so-called "Anti-war" movies make the best accounts of warfare and "Stalingrad" is no exception. This acclaimed anti-war film delivers solid acting and characters with depth, excluding the two-dimension Military Police Captain, who fulfills the obligatory role of as the film's token "true Nazi" (there had to be at least one!). Aside from that, I'm hard-pressed to name another movie that portrays the German soldier in World War II with such historical accuracy and objective portrayal. Military history buffs will appreciate the attention given to uniforms and the correct organization of the unit in the film as an Engineer battalion with an attached Feldgendarmerie company. (Though in the English version, the translators botched this, choosing to translate "Sturmpioniere" to the politically pejorative "Stormtroopers" rather than the more accurate "Assault Engineers") Real Russian T34s, magnetic anti-tank mines, a PAK 40 and a host of other authentic equipment make the setting for the tale believable.

But the movie is more than an active display of 1942 militaria. It is an intensely human tale of person within the soldier. For me, the film was strongly reminiscent of Guy Sajer's "Forgotten Soldier", particularly in capturing the deadly misery of the Russian winter and the daily lot of the common soldier. "Stalingrad" will be of interest to military viewers for leader professional development training. In particular, the film is solid precursor to values training and discussions of the boundaries of duty, selfless sacrifice, and loyalty.

I am extremely pleased to add this film in my collection and thank you for the opportunity to recommend it further.

Rating:
Summary: I like this movie
Review: I can't comment too much on the historical accuracy of this film. What I do know, however, is that I truly enjoyed it. It really made be feel for what it would be like to starve and/or freeze in the middle of nowhere with no help in sight. The lost cause. Always an interesting premise.

Rating:
Summary: Das Boot (The Boat) on Land and Equally Shattering
Review: From the same producer of "Das Boot," "Stalingrad" tells the story of the common cog in the military machine of the Third Reich. Stalingrad does so with exceptional cinematography and casting, focusing on a new Wehrmacht (Heer) Lieutentant's first experience at the front, and his interactions with his Captain, Sergeant, Corporal, and Privates. If you have heard of and imagined what the "Ostfront" or "Eastern Front" might have been like, this is the movie to see. It puts the carnage of our own recent films of the U.S. Civil War, senselessly bloody attempts to "take" terrain, or in this case, a city, building by building, in another context. It puts to you directly the eternal question: why war? I cannot answer the question, we know why German territorial expansion became World War Two. But to those involved in the expansion, what did it really mean? As one soldier comments from the train taking them from sunny Italy to Stalingrad, "Adolf is going to build me a highway out here." There will be land enough for all...remember Manifest Destiny? Who were the "Untermenschen" (literally, lower people). Slavs? Russians? Lakota Sioux? A thoughtful immersion in the themes of the film Stalingrad will open your mind to other questions, questions that have been asked and unanswered on every populated continent or sector on Earth. Can we learn something here that will avert repetition elsewhere, as we may be destined to go? Hopefully, that answer is yes. Lincoln is remembered as once saying, "G-d must have loved the common man, he made so many of them." Many different uniforms have been worn, but are the wearers the same? At one excecution scene in Stalingrad, a soldier comments--this is so we remember which side we're on. That is because it is so easy to forget....

Rating:
Summary: Its Hard to Empathize with Nazi Storm Troopers But....
Review: The director here does a good job. If there was a hell on Earth this it. Men at war are often depicted as one dimensional goons looking for glory and riches and who know's what else. How much more so German soldiers? Unlike allid soldiers who made a sacrifice these men and women were just sacrified for, what boils down to, a mad man's bent ideal. I'll stop well short of defending their actions. What I'll say is this movie does not strip any of the characters of their humanity. The viewer begins to have more contempt for the circumstances than any of the characters. Horribly accurate in its outcome, I'm giving this film 4 stars for its potential to provoke empathy.

Rating:
Summary: Did anybody notice the RunTime of this DVD?
Review: I'v recently watch this DVD again,and I found out my Parasound DVDPlayer showed that the RunTime of this film is 137 min,NOT what the boxcover said 150 min,and I checked the IMDB data of Stalingrad (1993),it showed the Runtime: 134 min / Argentina:135 min ,also diff.from what Fox Lorber says,Mine is the origional R1 edition. ...

Rating:
Summary: Realistic War Film with an Anti-War Message
Review: The production team of "Das Boot" (Dir. Wolfgang Petersen, 1981; Dir. cut, 1997) again paints a human face on Hitler's war machine with this gut retching film: Stalingrad. The film follows a platoon of German "Stormtroopers" from a comfortable R & R on the Mediterranean to the horrors of the Russian front. The result is an anti-war message every bit as powerful as All Quiet on the Western Front.The film's protagonist is a young lieutenant (Thomas Kretschmann) sent to replace the former platoon officer who was wounded in action. He is not a die-hard Nazi, however, initially he is full of discipline and military bearing. As in other films of this genre, the young officer soon finds that military protocol as well as gentlemanly rules of war do not apply in combat, particularly on the Russian front. After the first major battle for the tractor factory, the story begins to focus on the ever dwindling platoon. The nucleus of which consists of the Lieutenant, Fritz (Dominique Horwitz), the sergeant (Joachim Nickel), and a raw recruit Gege (Sabastian Rudolph). The group soon finds themselves fighting both the enemy and an officer corp bent on carrying out Hitler's futile orders at any cost. The latter is exemplified in a corrupt Captain (Karl Hermanck) who acts as the film's villain.The main theme of the film is survival. Unlike Das Boot, there is no sense of daring adventure among the platoon, only hopes of returning to Germany alive. The battle scenes are exciting and realistic. The scene where six authentic Russian T-34 tanks attack the dug-in platoon on a frozen steppe is well done, although the film makers included far too few Russian infantry for protection. There is enough severed limbs and blood on the snow to add realism. One gruesome scene in particular during the tank attack, a German soldier accidentally runs in the path of an anti-tank round and is completely cut in two. He lives long enough to view the lower half of his body lying next to his bloody torso. After the Germans are completely surrounded and cut off from all food and supplies, the last remaining four survivors realize they are doomed to either languish in Siberia or die. They decide, with the help of a female Russian soldier to escape the encirclement themselves. The ending will surprise those who have been drawn to the last four members of the platoon. The film achieves its aim of showing how political ideology is absent from the battlefield. One has to almost be reminded that the cannon fodder at Stalingrad represented two totalitarian regimes that condoned terror and murder on an unprecedented scale. Originally in German with English subtitles, the DVD offers an English dub that is not distracting. Decent acting, good sets and realism are the strengths and Stalingrad deserves a hearty recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: just like the stories grandpa talks about
Review: it is one of the best war movies ever made. one could even say that this movie is a dokumentary. i have seen a doku with actuall filmmaterial about stalingrad, and this movie hit it on the spot. they could have made this movie more reallistic, as seen on the doku, but then it would be a horor movie. what makes this a great war movie? the fact that it centeres its' story around war not like a love story in a war. a must see in original language. sorry but england english don't fit.

Rating:
Summary: Epic
Review: Stalingrad is definately one of the best war movies ever made. The fact that some people say that 'Enemy at the gates' was better, is laughable. 'Enemy at the gates' was quite a good movie, but what dragged it down was the love story added in. 'Stalingrad' is a classic because you really feel for the characters and become emersed in their ups and downs throughout the film. 'Stalingrad' is a great film, period. I'd reccommend it to anyone looking for war movie experience like no other.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is an excellent film. The men depicted here are my uncles, my godfathers, and many other young German men who never returned home. Never mind the rightness or the wrongness of the war, the effect of this film is powerful. The frozen faces of the men ground into the Russian soil by tanks are the same faces of those in my family albums. This is the counterpart to the great generation. They were real people with real hopes, ideals, and illusions. This movie is best seen in German with English subtitles. Unfortunately many a nuance is lost in translation.