Everyman's War

The Bad: We gotta take points away because many of the actors were just noobs. The German general waving his finger around like he's clever, the two older people reciting Pollyanna lines at the end of the movie.

The Ugly: Not much. Great pains were made to make this film an extremely effective period piece, at the cost of all the memorabilia being in museum quality. I mean seriously, is every 1940 car going to be running around snow country spotless and with new wax? This is a minor point, but it would have been very easy for the filmmaker to address.

The Good: Excellent story, and excellent manner in which it was told. Excellent acting by the principles. Extremely effective combat scenes, which I claim raise the bar on Saving Private Ryan. But most effective of all was the telling of life in the trenches. This movie could easily fit in the miniseries Band of Brothers, and would outshine all those other episodes. The movie portrays the Germans as professional soldiers. Note that this is a true story, and remember that war is 99% boredom and 1% terror. Firefights showed the terror aspect, none of these soldiers was running around (Rambo), nor were they incompetent idiots (The Big Red One). Saving Private Ryan was an allegory on life. No squad actually stormed Omaha Beach, then walked 20 miles behind German lines to successfully stop a Panzergrenadier platoon. Everyman's War is the story of one real soldier, his sufferings, his terror, and his losses. And the fact that this movie is compared to Saving Private Ryan is a real testament to the filmmaker, who should be extremely proud of this movie.