The Rats of Tobruk

Rating:
Summary: Documentary My Dear Rat
Review: First I would like to say the transfer from film to DVD is only mediocre. Some of the dark battle scenes in the original go completely black on DVD. This movie starts out like a documentary in Australia with the commentator talking about the Australian cattle ranchers. From time to time through out the movie it goes back to a documentary style. This bored me to the point that I fast forwarded it to the point they go off to war. The rest of the movie moves at a decent pace and the acting isn't to bad. Peter Finch is in it and turns in a fair performance. However; there are a couple scenes where the commanders are planning their battle tactics that are very stiff. Overall the movie just doesn't make it in my library of those WWII movies to own. If you are really into Austrailia's war movies you may find this more redeeming than I did. I'm giving my DVD to a charity.

Rating:
Summary: The Worst!
Review: If there is a worse movie out there, I haven't seen it yet. If this is the best they can do down under, they better stick to just drinking Foster's. This movie is a dishonor to the brave soldiers who fought at Tobruk on either side. First of all, the movie's battle scenes were filmed mostly at night, a sure sign it is a cheap movie. The night scenes are used to cover for poor props and cheap budgets. Over one third of the movie is just unviewable on this DVD transfer as the scenes are too dark to see. There are occasional flashes of guns going off and that's it. I have no idea if the VHS version is this bad, but I will not take a chance on it to find out.

I hesitate to criticize any movie, but this is truly one of the three worst movies I have had the displeasure of buying/viewing. "Battle of Blood Island" and "Cease Fire" are the other two. As a collector of war genre movies, I needed this movie to help fill out my collection, but this has no place in my video library. The plot is really non-existant and the acting is terrible--this plus the poor transfer just add up to a total loser. The fact that this is an older movie doesn't even save it.