PodBill Just what I expected

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

sarodgers-08868 To be honest I was expecting a low budget bodged effort with lousy period detail and an awful screenplay. In fact it frankly puts most Hollywood and UK efforts to shame. The uniforms, T 34's are really well done and the combat looks authentic, reminiscent perhaps of Cross of Iron. 1944 highlights the sheer randomness of war both in terms of which side you would be pushed into fighting for and graphically who makes it through..... I feel it emphasises loyalty to the platoon, rather than any ideal and how similar one infantry man is to another. Themes of guilt run through story no doubt echoing Estonia's own history in this period, with no options to offer between the two evils, the men could be conscripted into either side. The film pulls off a difficult task in showing realism, brutality and forgiveness within one of the most unforgiving conflicts in history, whilst avoiding the routine white hats black hats seen in most war movies.

mug wamp Within the first 5 minutes of watching this movie I was noticing some very keen attention to detail not seen in typical war movies. The Germanic Estonian uniforms were quite authentic, right down to the camouflage patterns and crests. The weapons, and even the handling of the weapons were true to WW2 doctrine of the time. On the soviet side you have actual T34/85 tanks, and soldiers sporting appropriate tunics and weapons. This authenticity helps with the immersion, otherwise without it, the plot means nothing.Its a war movie about a Foreign Volunteer platoon of SS soldiers. This is a point of view seldom seen, after all these guys are fighting on the side of Adolf Hitler. And there exists a vacuum for this subject matter. In-spite of that, there is a story to tell and it should be told. The movie takes a moment to humanize the characters. One interlude displayed the soldiers of the Estonian SS Platoon blatantly disrespecting a Nazi party member and joking about Adolf Hitler. Another scene showed the soldiers rescuing a child during an air raid. It tries to explain why good guys are fighting for the wrong side and even minimizes that issue during a friendly conversation between the main character and a Danish SS soldier. And it is true there were Corps of volunteers fighting for the Nazi's from Foreign countries. But it is not necessary to explain this, because at the heart of it this is about soldiers who are on the ropes fighting for survival just before they lost the war. So don't get too attached to the soldiers. Attrition is high.I won't give it away, but there is a very clever change of perspective that takes place about halfway through this movie. Nuff said about that. The acting is very good. At times you can tell a limited budget was all they had to make this, and perhaps you have to admire the resourcefulness of the producers and directors to get the most out of what they had.

Agnius Vasiliauskas It's hard to make a war movie not crossing hero line - in many war movies one side is good ones and another is opposing front. And ordinary people are left out-of-the plot usually. In the big WWII picture there are two sides - Germans and allies who recruits new soldiers from whatever country. But the problem is - what if country is small and want's to be neutral, but it can't be - because of big external forces ? In such case country is split into two opposing parts. And the smaller the country - the bigger chaos takes place in that picture which is made from the Estonia country perspective in WWII. So in the end - whoever wins in the world war - we lose, as nation of small country, because it's not our business after all. And this plot makes movie highly approachable from the ordinary people eyes, because there are too many war movies with heroes in it, and less with people who just tries to deal with a fact that soldier's duty is just another job which can break your life in an unimaginable way.

tomjaksen First of all,i've seen many war movies,both the old and the new.( from lets say "iron cross" to the "fury")And i must say,this has to be one of the best ww2 movies ever.Why?.(NOTE THAT this movie only cost 2 milion euros.) First:It has authentic Word War 2 vibe in it,meaning that everything or most of the scenes created a nice effect of actually seeing documentary of that time. Second:Amazing 2 side view from both sides fighting ( the russians and the Germans) Third: Besides great fighting scenes,a great story and really well showed drama of that time.Downsides:I actually couldn't say much,but GF pointed out that there wasn't much of a womans point of view on living on that time.And i have to agree on that.