Rating: 
Summary: Good little German Movie
Review: THE BRIDGE is a fine B&W WWII movie that is set in a village deep in Western Germany. All of the action occurs the last week of April, 1945.
This Movie is unique because of the time, location, and entirely German perspective of this tiny War story.
The eight kids who are assigned to guard, then defend, the bridge are 16 year olds. The climatic battle with the American Armored patrol is very well done (for the most part). What is interesting is that, because this is a German made film, the American soldiers and Sherman Tank gunners are all very bad shots (except for an American sniper with a scoped rifle). Where as in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (an American made film), the German Wafen SS troops and Tiger Tank gunners who attack the bridge at Ramelle are also very bad shots!
Still the action is riveting for a low budget, foreign film. Unfortunately, the viewer has to wait an hour for the final battle, because most of the picture is character development, and it consists largely of teenagers yelling at their parents, which can be very obnoxious to listen in German dialouge.
Rating: 
Summary: Jungvolk boys are tough and true.....
Review: This film is like a bomb with a very long fuse. It starts slowly, moves at a gentle, almost maddeningly slow pace, and then suddenly rips you to shreds. Very few WWII movies are told from the German perspective. This one has the added, almost unique advantage of having been shot 10 years after the end of the war, when the wounds of the war had not even stopped bleeding. Although it is shot on B/W film, the violence is extremely graphic and no attempt is made to spare the audience the horrible result of bullets going through human bodies. In other words, if you are looking for cartoon violence, look elsewhere. This film was written by people who understood that bullets make holes. "Die Brucke" is the story of six schoolchildren who are drafted into the Wehrmacht in the spring of 1945, given one day's training, and then thrown into battle when the war is hopelessly lost. A well-meaning officer and an equally human NCO conspire to have them detailed to a useless objective -- a small bridge in the little Bavarian town where they grew up and, only days before, played Cowboys & Indians. Unfortunately, the war does not pass them by, and the boys are too naive to understand that their cause is lost and that people who are shot to death do not get up and keep playing afterwards. The young "soldiers" are alternately pathetic and frightening with their mixture of boyhood enthusiasm, decency, cruelty, and mischief. One minute they are playing pranks, the next cold-bloodly shooting down an American soldier who tries to get them to surrender. They grasp far too late that their elders don't care what happens to them, that they will receive no medals for their heroics, and that there are people in their own army who are bigger enemies than the Americans are. The film may be too slow in the beginning for American audiences, but the payoff is well worth it. With an obviously limited budget and resources, director Wicke does a first-class (surprisingly graphic) job of pitting his kindergarten soldiers against American tanks and displaying the disgusting mayhem that follows. All war films are said to be anti-war films, but most American and British pics from the postwar period depict combat as a thrill-ride and the Germans as human targets who are equally sadistic and stupid. "Die Brucke" puts human faces on the men (often boys) in the Nazi uniform without making apologies for Nazism (this film rarely passes up a chance to scorn the Nazis who preached 'holding out to the last round' and then hopped the fastest train away from the battle). People who somehow found films like "Where Eagles Dare" entertaining should watch this DVD and then try to find the humor in slitting a teenage conscript's throat. I would recommend the film to anyone, but especially as an insight onto how things looked and felt on "the other side of the hill."
Rating: 
Summary: Unique West German WW2 Film
Review: This is a little known gem that was nominated in 1959 for "Best Foreign Language Film". Give it an extra star if you are a huge foreign, military, history, or WW2 film fan. The fact that it is so hard to find is reason enough, as it was for me, to justify the reviews I read of hard core war atrocities. This time that against the youth of a defeated nation, that forces them to fight a lost fight. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! The DVD is excellent in offering both German (English subtitle's), and an excellent English soundtack that's not at a loss compared to the German! THIS IS A HARD TO FIND HISTORICALLY ACCURATE GEM!
Rating:
Summary: One of the GREATEST Anti-War films ever made!!!!
Review: This movie really made a lasting impression on me. The way young men glorify war and how they learn first hand how brutally real war really is. I was lucky to find a copy to owen. I would highly recommend finding one to own or rent.
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