Thread: Worst non-fiction war film

Originally Posted by Spank-it

Passchendaele

A Canadian war movie released last year (or 0was a right laffer, which was unfortunate as I was really looking forward to it coming out. The director Paul Gross went to great lengths to re-create accurate WW1 battle scenes but spoiled it by:

Starring in it as the wounded hero sent home who falls in love with the hottest bint in town who's brother is going to war so he rejoins the unit to save said underage kid.

The bint just happens to be a nurse who coincidentally finds herself near the battlefield btw.

I wish I could describe how laughable the final scene was as our hero (Gross) drags the kid who, after getting himself blown up, landed upright on a cruciform symbol. The wounded Gross puts the cross over his left shoulder and drags it on hands and knees back across no-mans land to the admiration of the 3 Hun and the 4 Cdns that were left standing after the battle.

Just tapped up the trailer on youtube.

Dammy, I thought America was the only place that magically made people lose their accents as soon as they got off the boat and start talking American as soon as their feet touched American soil ('cept paisanos of course, however they're spelt).

If all the battle scenes in the film go like this then you'd be forgiven for thinking that they weren't at Passchendaele, where there were 16000 Canadian casualties.

Anachronistic mannerisms and speech patterns, impossibly tasty/easy scrapping with a faceless foe, perennially fusty British...

The Canadians are going American


Edit: They've even got a token Frenchie instead of a Black man.

On behalf of an embarrassed nation, I apologise. That film was as laughed about here as I'm sure it was in the UK.

Originally Posted by Spanny

I'm probably in a minority but I thought the Russian film 9th Company was crap . He get all these thousands of Jihadists charging the Soviet positions then there's jump cuts to where they all seem to have disappeared . Also if you look up the real actual battle the company only lost a small handful of men

I don't think Black Hawk Down is as bad as made out . The Rangers did in fact get saved by a PakistaniUN / 10th Mountain Division force . There is a ridiculous inaccuracy when Sgt Eversman ( Josh Hartnett ) leads the defence when in fact the real life Eversman spent most of the battle back at base

Yes, you are in the minority.

Facking film critic cants!!!!!

green berets or any john wayne film

any rambo film

M*A*S*H also spawned a rubbish tv series to...

any war film with mel gibson

Battle of Britain, utter wank

Allison Engined 109's and He111's?

German M35A2 trucks instead of Opels and Mercedes

Goering on a French railways train?

drawing flames on the film when a engine brews up?

German Flak 30 on a Southern England airfield in 1940?


Nigga Please..................................

Originally Posted by Goldbricker

Battle of Britain, utter wank

Allison Engined 109's and He111's?

German M35A2 trucks instead of Opels and Mercedes

Goering on a French railways train?

drawing flames on the film when a engine brews up?

German Flak 30 on a Southern England airfield in 1940?


Nigga Please..................................

Bit harsh mate. I think some of those 'planes were from your very own Confederate Airforce, so you yanks can have the blame for that as well. My problem with the Battle of Britain is the shouty bit by the character played by Suzannah York. (RIP and I most definately would have… http://www.arrse.co.uk/images/attach/jpg.gif

I haven't seen battle of britain for years, but I do seem to remember thinking that the ME 109's were repainted kittihawks (quite possibly wrong though, as WW2 aircraft recognition isn't my strongest point).

In respect of gibson, I am inclined to agree, but many years ago I watched one of his earlier films about Z force that I thought was very good, but I haven't seen it for years and with a little experience that view may change. I can't remember what it is called, but may well have been Z force.

Originally Posted by squeekingsapper

I haven't seen battle of britain for years, but I do seem to remember thinking that the ME 109's were repainted kittihawks (quite possibly wrong though, as WW2 aircraft recognition isn't my strongest point).

In respect of gibson, I am inclined to agree, but many years ago I watched one of his earlier films about Z force that I thought was very good, but I haven't seen it for years and with a little experience that view may change. I can't remember what it is called, but may well have been Z force.

Close; Attack Force Z with John Phillip Law

Originally Posted by squeekingsapper

I haven't seen battle of britain for years, but I do seem to remember thinking that the ME 109's were repainted kittihawks (quite possibly wrong though, as WW2 aircraft recognition isn't my strongest point).

No they were the real deal- Bf109's and He111's from the Spanish airforce (just before they scrapped them I think), they had to get the majority of aerial shots in spain- which they mostly shot with a sky background to avoid the obviously Spanish landscape being in the background. They were only allowed to bring a couple of aircraft here to do the scenes which included the White Cliffs and other typically English scenery.

Thats the one GB, I think I might need to catch up on it then, as your clip demonstrated some very dodgy berets and silenced M3 (?) grease guns rather then owens, which I would have thought par for the aussie commandos. That said, I do know that the Americans were in Australia from early 1942, so it's not against the realms of possibilty.

Originally Posted by StumpyHussar

They certainly were there but in the same way the British Pacific fleet was 'there' at the end of the war. The Yanks did all the work in the latter but were also-rans in the Burma War.

We (the Generals) did queer things a bit, by miss using the chindits, once Wingate was killed though :(

You have to be joking: the Chindits couldn't even have gone into action without Cochran's Air Commando. It was one of the great ground-air partnerships of WWII, comparable to that between 7th Australian Division and USAAF Fifth Air Force.

One oddity about 1st Air Commando was that if you'd been one of the Chindits flown in by assault glider you might have found a real life film star sitting in the pilot's seat. Jackie Coogan was a world wide celebrity by the time he was eight, starring alongside Charlie Chaplin in "The Kid". It seems strange that Hollywood never used him in a movie about his wartime experiences. At least he'd have been a lot more believable than Errol Flynn.

And if you're not a Chaplin fan, then you might remember Coogan as Uncle Fester in the Addam's Family.