Movie Forums Top 100 War Movies - Group Watch

I've seen Fires Were Started. It was interesting from a historical perspective but I remember finding the whole quasi -documentary aspect a bit odd - it didn't fully succeed as a narrative film or a doc. But it is worth watching and only just over an hour long if you can find it.

Fires Were Started -

If anything, this tribute to the British firefighters who salvaged buildings during the blitz proves that when it comes to special effects, there's no substitute for the real thing. Director Jennings and crew set an already-damaged building ablaze during the movie's key sequence, and this move combined with the fact that the performers are actual firemen could make this pass for cinema verité. The movie takes it time before getting to this sequence, which I think is a good decision not only for how it raises our anticipation, but also for the ways it lets us get familiar with how the fire department works and how the firefighters spend their downtime. I also like how peaceful and how friendly everyone is in the introductory sequence for how it makes you consider the absurdity of war. As for the conclusion, I approve of how it makes you think of the firemen like you would soldiers.

While it seems like Jennings' priority was to make this a tribute and exposé, I don't think it's wrong to say that the movie could be more involving on a personal level. It succeeds at letting us know what everyone does, but it could have done more to let us know what they're like. There's an attempt at this with the Barrett character, but it doesn't totally commit to it. As a result, it's all a bit chilly (no pun intended), so I ultimately appreciate the movie more than I like it. I'm still glad I got to see how these firefighters did their jobs and how fire departments operate in general. Oh, and most importantly, if anyone says they or someone they know was a firefighter in a war, I'll have even more respect for them.

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@Torgo

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Nomination #25

Haven't heard of it. Looking forward to watching it

Excellent, I've not seen it but it's based on a true story which is always a big plus in my book. I'll watch it hopefully tomorrow. Looks like a good one!

I watched Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. A very interesting, sad, inspiring true story. How brave she and her fellow White Rose members were! Thanks for the recommendation.


I feel like I now have more than 25 movies that need to be on my ballot!

Glad you liked it! It's not a big splashy production but being a true story and sad story, it has a lot of punch. I watched it right at the start of this group watch and just found it randomly.

It's certainly not big and splashy... at first I thought that was a flaw, that I would have liked to see more of the lead up but as I watched it I realised that it needed to be focused on the interrogation, that that revealed the most about her character and the regime and felt more realistic.

Yup agreed. It gave me the same foreboding feeling that I got from Night Moves (2013). Have you seen that?

Yes, I saw it for one of the personal rec hall of fames. About time we had another of those!

I'll have to go look at your review of Night Moves. YES another PR would be great, loved that idea.

Great film and amazing true survival War story. Locations, cinematography, hair & make-up are all top notch. Jonathan Rhys Meyers with a solid performance as usual. Good watch and yet another film that deserves to make the countdown.

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It's absolutely incredible that you nominated that specific movie. I was thinking about getting through a few Harald Zwart movies after I had just watched his movie The Pink Panther 2, and was already familiar with Agent Cody Banks. I took a look at his Letterboxd page and saw that people legit like this movie among the crap he's put out. I guess I may watch this after I get done with the next few movies I have scheduled.

Not seen-will try to!

Hope you enjoy it. Here's something I wrote about it when I first watched it a few years ago.

This is a tense, moving and very entertaining survival thriller from Norway that's in the same vein as The Revenant. Set during the Nazi occupation of the country, it follows Jan Baalsrud, the lone survivor of a botched sabotage operation, as he journeys to the safety of neutral Sweden. Watching Baalsrud avoid starvation and freezing to death is plenty tense thanks to the cinematography of Norway's beautiful yet harsh landscape and the realistic makeup depicting the soldier's deterioration. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers ramps up the tension even higher with his performance as Nazi commander Kurt Stage. The Javert to Baalsrud's Valjean, he ably portrays his obsession with seeing the soldier dead as well as the weight of his superiors' expectations. Baalsrud's journey is not as lonely as Glass's in The Revenant because in each town on his path, there are resistance members who help him and inspire him to continue. Their optimism and the ways they express the value of community inspired me as well, especially the young girl who shares Baalsrud's passion for mapmaking. It ended up being one of the most pleasant surprises I've had with a streaming service's movie library lately, not to mention one of the most extraordinary true stories I've come across.

Just finished The 12th Man, and I thought it was pretty good. It has its fair share of tense moments, not solely due to the threats of the nazis, but also due to the physical state of Jan throughout most of the film. There were a couple scenes which I felt went overboard (the triple nightmare was a prime example of this), but for the most part, I enjoyed the tense atmosphere it kept up. Granted, it did feel like the film was dragging throughout most of the middle act, but I'm of two minds of this. On one hand, the pacing does a good job at putting you in Jan's shoes given that much of his ordeal was spent waiting in remote locations for several days or more. On the other hand though, I did find myself impatient for the film to end at times. I'm rather torn on how to feel about this aspect. Fortunately, Stage's character helped to keep me partly on boad throughout the bloated parts since his determination to capture Jan made for some interesting moments. This won't make my ballot, but I'm glad it was nominated.

The 12th Man (Harald Zwart 2017)

Very interesting story! Too bad that it was directed by a mediocre director. I was psyched for this movie and was sure it would be memorable. But truth is I was bored almost from the start. Even the above torture scene that should've had some impact and some resonances, rang hollow...Nothing came from it other than the visual.

The entire film was like that, scenes with no meat. It's like the director planned this out visually based on an outline and made his film look good. But for as dramatic of a story that the real events were, the movie's script was underwhelming.

It didn't help matters that the director relied on horror staging to catch the audiences attention. I'm talking about the scene where we see a wide shot of a door and a mother with her child looking frighted as they set at a table, we hear screeching noises as the door handle turns-ever-so sloooowly...Then BOOM Jan burst in and gobbles up some food and collapses on the floor. The director should've been made to set in some icy water for that scene. Same goes for the delusional dream shock sequences. All that says to me is that the director knew his script wasn't up to par so he used some schmucky tricks to keep audiences awake.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers saves the day as a very effective SS officer. Too bad we didn't delve more into his story. As it was, the movie is 2 hours 15 minutes and that was too long for the material that they had to shoot.

The 12th Man


An incredible true story doesn't always make for an incredible film. This had some good tense sequences as he made his escape and some interesting interactions with the local people who help him but also some naff bits like the fake-out nightmare where he imagines being caught. It's a bit too long to sustain the momentum and the music was a bit obvious at times . I'll watch anything with Jonathan Rhys Meyers in though and it's always interesting to see a war film about a less well known aspect of the war.