Brother's War (2009)

What's wrong with this movie? I don't know. Yes it's not a super production costing 100million+$. SO what?The aim of this movie is to show us how compromise was at work at the end of WWII. Let's read what Wikipedia says of the Exiled Polish government during that period and how the occidental allies acted:...In April 1943, the Germans announced that they had discovered at Katyn Wood, near Smolensk, Russia, mass graves of 10,000 Polish officers(the German investigation later found 4,443 bodies who had been taken prisoner in 1939 and murdered by the Soviets. The Soviet government said that the Germans had fabricated the discovery. The other Allied governments, for diplomatic reasons, formally accepted this; the Polish Government in Exile refused to do so......InNovember 1944, despite his mistrust of the Soviets, Mikołajczyk resigned to return to Poland and take office in the Provisional Government of National Unity, a new government established under the auspices of the Soviet occupation authorities comprising his faction and much of the old Provisional Government. Many Polish exiles opposed this action, believing that this government was a façade for the establishment of Communist rule in Poland. This view was later proved correct in 1947, when Mikołajczyk's People's Party was defeated in an election which was later shown to have been fraudulent. The Communist- dominated bloc was credited with over 80 percent of the vote, a result that was only obtained through large-scale falsification. The opposition claimed it would have won in a landslide had the election been honest. Mikołajczyk, who would have likely become prime minister had the election been truly free, left Poland again in April 1947, this time never to return.Meanwhile the Polish Government in Exile had maintained its existence, but France on 29 June 1945,then the United States and United Kingdom on July 5, 1945 withdrew their recognition...This being quoted what is shown on the movie is also plausible. The USSR government was and still is no better than the Nazi one and many other governments still in power. And that's the subject of the film showing how two men can change their appreciation of their situation in view of a war crime. The acting is perfect and the movie does not need super special effects to put this situation into perspective. Maybe there are 52 stars on the American flag, so what? Great movie directors have had anachronism and errors in masterpieces, did we consider these to be rubbish? Of course not.This movie is not a cult one obviously, but it is a movie worth viewing with a brilliant musical score which is like a huge requiem in the background mourning a beginning friendship harshly interrupted, an unrealized love union due to the greed for power and domination of the world of two blocks. Through Klaus and Andrew, it is us the viewers who are personified and presented as the puppets of governments and ideologues pretending to protect us but who don't.

I am disgusted by the negative reviews. I enjoy watching WW2 films and there are not that many new ones being produced, so we should congratulate Tino Struckmann, who also plays the main German, for making films about this genre. Obviously, they are on a tight budget, but not everyone has Spielberg's millions and access to major Hollywood capital. Giving ratings like 2 out of 10 means that other small budget films about WW2 are unlikely to be attempted which would be a tremendous loss. They have done their best with the resources available and if you don't like it, please only watch Hollywood blockbusters again with famous stars whose individual salary demands will be more than all the money paid to the whole cast of this.

The description on the DVD box looked promising, but after the open war scene (must have used 2/3 of the total budget) this movie went downhill within minutes. I can't honestly review this movie because I only saw about 45 minutes of it. The acting was so bad that I had to stop it. I paid $1 to rent it and feel completely ripped off. How does a movie this bad get released? The script was juvenile and the "dramatic" acting and delivery of the actors was horrible. The scenery in the opening of the movie was the only thing that held my interest for all of about five minutes. No military adviser was on set, nothing I saw was even close to authentic. One of the Russian officers looked and acted like a carnival side-show drop-out. Don't rent it for a dollar and leave it in the bargain at WalMart.

This had to be one of the worst, if not the worst movies ever. Like the individual several comments before me said, they called the Russian tank a Panzer. Further,they then tried to, and if I recall correctly, succeeded by blowing a "Panzer" tank up with German potato mashers. Other stupid things that were done: The Germans talked with British accents; The officer and another soldier took cover behind a 6" tree ( like the guy above said). (I know this is all completely random stuff thrown together but I have to get 10 lines) I personally believe that the director, producers, and the nitwit who came up with this story and script should forever be banned from taking any part in the making of a movie.