Devils men review
Coming fresh off the heels of a masterpiece like "Masters of the Air" I had high hopes for more, modern World War II content. By all accounts, "The Devil's Brigade - Die Spezialeinheit" should have been a winner: an elite unite, the First Special Service Force, going up against seemingly insurmountable odds in an area of the war that really hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.
However, despite some great editing, and passion on the part of the production crew and actors, the film feels disingenuous. Instead of taking audiences on a journey, showing them the horrors of war through the eyes of an Everyman, "Devil's Brigade" feels more like a version of war that the screenwriter thought it should be, instead of what it actually was. A sanitized version of events, instead of the true history that honors what these men and women went through.
Beyond that, the dialogue felt forced. It sounded like someone had watched "A Bridge Too Far", "Big Red One" or "Patton" and tried to cobble together the same speech patterns found in those classics, but instead, ended up with something more akin to a 1950s radio serial: canned, hokey, and unnatural.
Maybe "Devil's Brigade" will inspire viewers to look into the actual history and see what the real people did and experienced. I just wish it had been depicted in this film.
Coming fresh off the heels of a masterpiece like "Masters of the Air" I had high hopes for more, modern World War II content. By all accounts, "The Devil's Brigade - Die Spezialeinheit" should have been a winner: an elite unite, the First Special Service Force, going up against seemingly insurmountable odds in an area of the war that really hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.
However, despite some great editing, and passion on the part of the production crew and actors, the film feels disingenuous. Instead of taking audiences on a journey, showing them the horrors of war through the eyes of an Everyman, "Devil's Brigade" feels more like a version of war that the screenwriter thought it should be, instead of what it actually was. A sanitized version of events, instead of the true history that honors what these men and women went through.
Beyond that, the dialogue felt forced. It sounded like someone had watched "A Bridge Too Far", "Big Red One" or "Patton" and tried to cobble together the same speech patterns found in those classics, but instead, ended up with something more akin to a 1950s radio serial: canned, hokey, and unnatural.
Maybe "Devil's Brigade" will inspire viewers to look into the actual history and see what the real people did and experienced. I just wish it had been depicted in this film.