First the good. It is good that digitalisation, CGI & straight to DVD is making low budget film making more possible. This inevitably means more films, some of poor quality. The writing & general production values of this film are not at all bad. There has been a plethora of poor WW2 films on the market lately. This is not one of them. This is more war drama than war action film & any prospective viewer should bear this in mind.
The film is informative about the strains, stresses & foibles of the young men sent to bomb Germany. Others have commented on the unlikelihood of a joint RAF/US daylight bombing raid. Night war action seldom excites on film. So perhaps we can afford the film maker some poetic licence. The main air action sequence is pretty good.
It is also good that young white South Africans should cast about for what to be proud of in their recent history, just like Germany's postwar generation has had to do. Both generations live under the shadow of twin evils - Nazism & Apartheid. Innumerable German films have dealt with the German opposition to Nazism. Now we have young white South Africans recounting the tale of young white South Africans fighting Nazism in WW2. The decision to use the SS rather than regular Wehrmacht underlines how evil Nazism was.
One could be cynical and say the anti-Nazi heroics of a few can hardly make up for the decades of injustice under Apartheid which followed victory in 1945. But that is not the point. We are talking about post-Nazi & post-Apartheid generations who bear no responsibility for the previous evils of their countries. It is good that a story like the one portrayed in this film can be seized upon by young South Africans, white & black, to show they have a common story of opposing racism & oppression - but in different times & different places.
Now the bad. The South African actors used in the film struggle with the British accent. The portrayal of the SS is too clichéd but does add a dramatic tension which is otherwise rather lacking. The British soldiers appear rather too spic & span for troops who have been fighting their way across France since D-Day.
The film is informative about the strains, stresses & foibles of the young men sent to bomb Germany. Others have commented on the unlikelihood of a joint RAF/US daylight bombing raid. Night war action seldom excites on film. So perhaps we can afford the film maker some poetic licence. The main air action sequence is pretty good.
It is also good that young white South Africans should cast about for what to be proud of in their recent history, just like Germany's postwar generation has had to do. Both generations live under the shadow of twin evils - Nazism & Apartheid. Innumerable German films have dealt with the German opposition to Nazism. Now we have young white South Africans recounting the tale of young white South Africans fighting Nazism in WW2. The decision to use the SS rather than regular Wehrmacht underlines how evil Nazism was.
One could be cynical and say the anti-Nazi heroics of a few can hardly make up for the decades of injustice under Apartheid which followed victory in 1945. But that is not the point. We are talking about post-Nazi & post-Apartheid generations who bear no responsibility for the previous evils of their countries. It is good that a story like the one portrayed in this film can be seized upon by young South Africans, white & black, to show they have a common story of opposing racism & oppression - but in different times & different places.
Now the bad. The South African actors used in the film struggle with the British accent. The portrayal of the SS is too clichéd but does add a dramatic tension which is otherwise rather lacking. The British soldiers appear rather too spic & span for troops who have been fighting their way across France since D-Day.