I have never seen any movie makers on such a small budget tackle both the eastern front and D-day, This film should be remade on a studio budget it is pretty awesome in its scope. The negative reviews really need to take this in to account, They did something nobody have ever before done. And the film is full of historic notes worth seeing for the details and number of guns and real tanks. A few points should probably have been done different but I get it and I got it. the lead Tino Struckmann did a great acting job holding it together, the lead lady can act but seem a little to modern for this film, some great supporting roles I hope Hollywood take note of the talent here.

I picked this up recently in the UK, where it has been released under the title 'Battle Over Normandy'. I really wish I hadn't. I brought another film very similar to this recently called 'Rhineland' and while this isn't quite as bad as that, its not far off. Before anyone accuses me of having a dig or personal attacks - I have no problem with low budget movies of this type, and thought the recent Saints and Soldiers 2 was a very good effort in the latter regard. Secondly I know how difficult making something like this can be, especially if you decide to take on so many jobs as Tino Struckman appears to have done here, but then you must also take the blame for the failings and unfortunately there are plenty. The plot, such as there is, see's a German Soldier (Played by Tino) return from the Russian Front to be posted in Normandy where he ends up near his love Klaudia (Claudia Crawford)who works as a nurse. The Allies invade, there are some fall outs out with the Gestapo and people are imprisoned and breakout, there is a battle and people die. What the production had going for it was the obvious involvement of a huge number of WW2 rein-actors and their resources with a whole plethora of tanks and vehicles on display, and while these are put to good use, this effectively turns the film into a re-enactment video. The score for the film is so loud in places you cannot hear the dialogue, and the two leads in the film lack any real dimension or background that makes their relationship seem real, despite the brief presence of the girls father.The film does have a couple of things going for it - The scenes in Russia were quite nice, and some attempt has been made, at least in a few shots to make this look like it wasn't shot in America but a few simple things, such as old style European Road signs, could have made a lot of difference in firmly placing this elsewhere. While yes there is attention, where possible to historical accuracy, there's a lot of problems with it too. Its not just the lack of boats in the Normandy scenes, but the constant mix of units and uniforms, with SS wandering in and out all over the place with other units. Sure that did happen, but here its really distracting. You have the same vehicles turning up in different scenes set in different places, where scrim over the ID numbers painted on the side would have sold that problem. To be honest these are minor niggles which probably bothered other people more than they did me. The main gripe I have is the script, dialogue and characterisation. Case in point being, that there isn't any. The script is basic at best and serves no real purpose it seems than to get the leading man a kiss with the leading lady. Supporting characters are given no chance to breathe or screen time, so there is no sense of presence of any other actor on screen at any time, apart from the leading lady who you cannot miss with her bright red lipstick and non regulation very short nurses uniform. Mr Struckmann, does not look or sound German in anyones' imagination, and you have actors here all doing different style accents with the odd German word thrown in for good measure, but no one actually attempts a German accent and when a letter is read out in a voice-over to a German Soldier its done in a posh British accent. Some of the cast playing German officers make a good stab at their scenes but the continuity in their scenes is terrible. There also seems little point giving the American soldiers actual dialogue as their characters are not key to what little story there is beyond being the opposing force. Some of them speak and we see their interaction - Why I have no idea, probably because that was the deal with the re-inactment society, in which case okay, lets have a main American character in there too, and follow his story parallel to the Germans instead of these meaningless unmemorable faces that we have invested no emotion in and couldn't care who they are. If this is a German storyline, then focus on the actions of a German platoon and keep the Americans simply as the enemy, after all, whose perspective is this from? The German lead surely? It seems a wasteful shame that having gathered up the resources in hand, people didn't sit down and say 'Okay, what can we actually make this story about?' because what attempt there is at a script is woefully bad. The lines are just so awful, that they make an episode of Sunset Beach look like Oscar winning material. Getting a few decent actors from either a local drama group or even some on deferred payment would not have been impossible if there was a good script here. Sadly low flying scenes of American fighter Bombers are all but wasted in a battle where the stakes for us as an audience are really non existent and the ending instead of moving me, was just devoid of emotion, which at least made it on par with the performances of the two leads.

I have unfortunately squandered 1h40 of my life which I shall never get back. This is by far the worst film I have ever seen.The general plot was made worse by the historical inaccuracies that, despite being a low budget film, should have been addressed. Even in the first few minutes on the Eastern Front seeing an immaculately clean grey Tiger tank next to a APC in the mid 1944 dark yellow cameo scheme made me cough up my drink. Such basic detail. The accents were pathetic and in line with those of Enemy at the Gates when Bob Hoskins introduces himself as Khrushchev in the most Cockney accent possible. And two landing craft on D-Day? If you've got a cheap budget, don't be over-ambitious like in this film where we can't help but be drawn to the constant mistakes plus the poor acting.What a useless film!!!

I thought it was a great war movie, a good story and a lot of action and an enormous amount of tanks, planes and hardware, and its all real not fake CG and I love that, but in a world of big fake studio films some people may not like the good old fashion style of film making. and its a shame more films are not made like this, the studios could learn a bit here as they usually just lean on effects to cover up an unoriginal story. the storyline here is absolutely original with some good actors, and a few less so but on a low budget they did an amazing job. and some of the shots are spectacular like the plane shots and tank battles, how they did it for real is unbelievable - great job