Gary Baysinger

Having read the book and seen both film versions, I eagerly anticipated a German-language version of the film (long overdue). I have to say I was a little disappointed. The cinematography was great, the combat scenes were gut-wrenching, and the overall acting was good. But, the director chose to play around with the timeline of the story, not sure why, it didn't add anything to the film. The book is filled with plenty of combat scenes, but there is also plenty of downtime, where we see the soldiers away from the fighting. The film seemed to downplay those parts and emphasize the fighting, not sure why. The soundtrack was uneven, multiple times there were electronic sound effects inserted into a scene, that seemed clunky and out of place. The whole storyline about the generals and politicians added nothing to the film (although I do like Daniel Bruhl). The original story had nothing to do with the generals and politicians, it was about the common soldier. As I said at the beginning, I was looking for forward to this, but came away a little disappointed.