When Trumpets Fade

Rating:
Summary: Hurtin in the Hurtgen
Review: Couldn't resist the corney title to this review. When Trumpets Fade attempts to tell the story of the WWII Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. In the Fall and Winter of 1944. This battle was so poorly conceived by the Allied leaders that it has been suppressed from our collective memory. It is not tought in schools and it should be remembered as one of the bloodiest and most worthless battles of the war. The battle took place in the replanted forest around Aachen and the fighting was so fierce that soldiers on both sides would pile dead bodies in front of their foxholes as they shot at each other only yards apart. Morale was so low and desertions so high that the only US soldier executed for desertiion, Private Eddie Slovack, came out of this battle. (More as an example to the others than anything else.) The action of the film attempts to depict the futility felt by the soldiers sent to the Hurtgen. Don't compare it to Sgt. Ryan or Band of Brothers. It stands alone depicting a difficult subject. The reluctant hero thing may be a bit of a strain, but the payoff at the end is worth the wincing at some minor actors overplaying their roles.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best GI Flicks
Review: This movie has to be one of the best GI flicks around. Having seen so many over the years, they all have a similar quality. Even Saving Pvt. Ryan is not quite as dark and realistic as this movie. Depicting the dark moments of the US army during the battle of Hurtgen Forest in November 1944, this film does not hold much back. Some of the battle scenes are intense and truly horrifying. While not as graphic as Ryan, this movie conveys just as much horror. The equippment appears accurate for the Germans as well as US forces shown. The two German tanks even if not the real thing have been done up to look like it. That gets points from me. The end, while a little fantastic, is still plausible for the most part. The only thing wrong is that the GIs seem to act a little contemporary in their language. If you want a truly realistic portrait of war, without a nice fairy tale ending, then this movie will fit the bill. If you don't like to see the US army look bad, then this movie may upset you with its realism.

Rating:
Summary: This one's a keeper.
Review: I was flipping through channels a few years ago and caught the last two-thirds of this movie on HBO. It was fantastic. No punches were pulled in it's delivery of realistic, wartime violence. The storyline was original and stayed true to itself, the cinematography was inventive (chilling at times), and the movie easily keeps the viewer entertained. I bought it. And I'm happy that I did.

Rating:
Summary: SUPERB
Review: John Irvin knows his way around a war movie. Had Irvin had Steven Speilburg's "Saving Private Ryan" budget, this would undoubtedly be the best war movie of all time. Well-scripted and taught, although some scenes appear a bit cheesy due to budget constraints. Ron Eldard gives an amazing performance as a war-weary GI who just wants to survive. Zak Orth also shines. Superb entertainment with so many cigarettes you'll develop lung cancer just watching. A brilliant film.

Rating:
Summary: military blunder
Review: i seen this film, after a friend in the national guard
promoted to LT, had to write a paper about it, it was a battle, not familiar to me, after seeing what a blunder we made, and the lives this battle cost before battle of the bulge, it's a wonder we won the war.

Rating:
Summary: Not one of better war movies ever made
Review: Maybe my mistake was that I watched this after having been obsessed with Band of Brothers for the past month, watching the series all the way through 3 times and watching some episodes 4 times. When Trumpets Fade is very poor in comparison. The battle scenes weren't terrible, but the plot is poor, the acting is fairly weak, the scenery is average, and although I don't remember ever noticing the music in a movie before, the music in this gave it a very low budget feel, and I found myself checking the DVD setup for a way to play the movie without the accompanying music. Whoever made the decision on the music for this film had to have been an amature, because at times it was worse than a '70's porn movie. I am sort of a war movie buff, and if you are one of those you should probably rent this, but I cant help feeling like it was sort fo a waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: Hiyo Silver type of manslaughter that never should've been
Review: This is a good movie on the battle lines of Hurtgen Forest, which it's very realistic in blood galore. I am not sure of the accuracy when compare to factual history but if they really depict what actually happen, then i can understand the waste of lives with lil gain during this frontiere. First off, when this sargient non-wannabe agreed do take out the enemy guns in return for a section 8, why did he bring 4 rookies GI's with 2 of them carrying their own flamethrower. First off, flamethrowers are for close range and not use to take out artillary in open field unless they want to be blown up with it when all the artillary shell start to explode. Not only that, they don't even know how to use it. One ran away sceaaming like a whining baby who eventually got shot by his own man and the other one is yelling like a moron while charging at them. Then they run like babies back to the line, which cost the lives of 3 of them.

First off, i would forget about the framethrowers and bring a bazooka with lots of granades, one guy bring the rockets. Plus, everyone forgot about those M1 rifles and bring thompsons instead to cover more ground. Dwight Yoakim, ur ok as a worthless commander but don't give up ur singing career cuz u still can't act and never will. Also, how can anyone suppose to get past the landmines and barb wires during heavy artilery shelling in daylight? The 82nd is a good division and should'nt waste their time in this mess. They should join the 101st in the battle of the bulge, which has a purpose and a victory. The keystone 28th division should just stay there holding the siegfred line instead of pushing an offensive to break it.

I recommend anyone who enjoy war movies, to watch this.

Rating:
Summary: Good story about WWII-era GIs fighting on the German front
Review: This made-for-cable WWII shoot-em-up came out around the same time as Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, and while it lacks the artistic depth of that film, it does give some nice glimpses into the visceral horror of on the ground warfare. The focus is the bloody and all-but-forgotten fight over Germany's Hurtegen Forest, described in the soldiers in the film as "the Death Factory." Our hero is a self-serving survivor whose talent for combat leads to several unwanted battlefield promotions -- and, of course, to a restoration of his deadened sense of humanity and heroism. The forced modernism of the script -- particularly the gratuitous cursing and '90s-ish performances -- threaten to upend the film in the opening sequences, but it gathers steam and a sense of dread. Worth checking out. The only real gaping hole is country singer Dwight Yoakam's dull, scenery-chomping cameos as a bullet-headed, unsympathetic officer. It's not really *that* bad of a performance, but I still think Dwight should re-think this whole acting career thing: his charisma doesn't translate well on screen.

Rating:
Summary: A Must See
Review: This film is an extremely worthy (albeit rarely mentioned in all the Band of Brothers hype) precursor to the "realistic" WWII films. Steven Spielberg's success with PRIVATE RYAN and HBO's with BAND OF BROTHERS owe much, if not all, to this one movie.

You will notice immediately how dark and serious a movie it is. There are no smiles, flag waving or happy endings. It has the fatalism of Alan Seeger's poem, "Rendezvous." And, it should be seen by everyone, with or without an interest in the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Darned Good
Review: I got this DVD on a recommendation from my father. Both of us poke our noses into WWII history and share our views on the events that take place.

This movie as you may have guessed takes place during the November campaign through the Sigfreid Line, specifically through the Hurtgen forest on the border of Germany and Belgium. Historically, this was one of the bigger follies of WWII costing more lives of the Allied and German soldiers than was needed. It could have been avoided. It was a messy affair much like Market Garden (A Bridge Too Far).

So, does the movie show this? Yes. On a personal level as a soldier makes it from Private to Lieutennant in three days because he was lucky enough to survive that long. It shows how the Repple Deple worked with sending constant replacements in to fill the spots of the dead (though in the film, the replacements knew each other, and this was rare since people were randomly divided up and sent to the front).

Anyway. The movie shows the horrors of not only war, but the absolute horror and hopelessness of being trapped in the Hurtgen forest by your own command because someone seemed to have something to prove somewhere higher up.