Colditz

All is fair in love and war. And when the two coincide, then all bets are seriously off.

Colditz is a town in Saxony, where the local castle was used as a prisoner of war camp during WWII. But this was not just any old POW camp. This was rather for the very special cases, that had previously escaped from elsewhere.

The film begins with four British soldiers escaping through a tunnel, making their way to the neutral Switzerland. One of them makes it, two get caught and end up in Colditz and the forth gets shot.

The one that made it is one Nick McBride, rather reluctant in serving his home land and generally not the most ambitious person. Nevertheless, he made it out and receives accolades for that alone. He is promoted and starts work for the secret M9, who's job it is to assist other British POW's in escaping, establishing safe houses and transport back home and such.

The two that got caught are Willis and Jack Rose. Willis ended up caught in a barbed wire fence and Jack twisted his ankle. Before McBride departed, Jack asked him to look up his sweetheart back home, Lizzie. This he does and falls in love with her. When Lizzie keeps refusing his pursuit of her, McBride fakes an official correspondence telling her that Jack died when he was shot while trying to escape Colditz. This paves the way for his own romance with Lizzie.

Jack and Willis, meanwhile, plan and try one escape plan after the other (as do many other prisoners) and almost make it every time. Some do make it out, however, and it is through the escape of two individuals that McBride's betrayal is discovered.

This kicks off a series of events.

First, Sawyer, a former inmate writes to Jack to inform him that his Lizzie believes him to be dead and that the one that stands to gain from this can only be McBride.

Jack, as a consequence uses an escape plan that was devised for Willis, breaking Willis at last. This results in the poor guy simply trying to walk out of Colditz and getting shot in the back.

When M9 gets word that Jack is on his way to a safe house, McBride gets understandably nervous. When Sawyer tells him that Jack knows about him and Lizzie, the two start a shuffle that leaves Sawyer dead (this more or less accidental).

McBride then sells out the safe house Jack is in to the Germans and everyone there is shot and killed with Jack the only one getting away.

As a last ditch effort, he tries to whisk Lizzie out of the country for the New World, but Jack arrives just in the nick of time for Lizzie to realize that she has been lied to. As the two men fight (of course they do), the M9 is hot on the heels of McBride and shot him.

All this takes over 3 hrs. total but is actually so well make and played that time flies by.

7/10

Deathwatch

During WW I, a battalion of British soldiers stumbles through a field of fog, losing their orientation. When they come upon extensive German trenches, they kill the few German soldiers still in it except for one and take over the trenches. Obviously, they don't heed the lone soldiers warning about the place, telling them that they will turn on each other if they stay.

They are under command of one Cpt. Jennings, who orders them to defend the trenches until their own troops catch up with them. But they are unable to make contact with anyone, with only white noise coming through the radio.

The place is eerie, to say the least, and the fogs surrounding everything never lifts. They soon realize that they are stranded, not knowing where they are and unable to call for help. But their Captain insists on staying, no matter how uneasy everyone is.

Sometimes, at night, the place is surrounded by battle noises but whenever they get ready for the oncoming attack nothing happens and the noise dies down again. In the confusion that follows their trying to clean out the tunnel system by throwing explosives inside, the Captain accidentally shoots one of his own men - the first sign of them turning on each other.

On another occasion, a patch of fog, this one rather red than white, befalls one of the soldiers who is then finally ready to desert his post. When he does, he is - as deserters will be - shot by a companion. His other fellow soldiers try to help him, but he gets swallowed up by the ground before they can get to him.

This then causes the group to finally split apart, some wanting to leave immediately, the Captain still wanting to stay and establishing his role as the leader and one rather crazy man hollering at whatever is out there with him to come and get him. When the Captain orders him to cease his nonsense, he gets stabbed to death for his efforts. As predicted, they all turn on each other, with only one of them (the youngest) having any sense of moral left and only shooting out of self defense.

When all but himself are dead the earth swallows the bodies along with him into...the ground? ...hell? When he comes to he is surrounded by decaying corpses and in the distance sees his entire battalion, seemingly unharmed, including himself. When he stumbles outside he runs into the one remaining German soldier, now suddenly fluent in English when before he was only able (willing?) to communicate in French, telling the survivor that he is free to go as he was the only one trying to help him.

It all ends with another battalion happening upon the trenches and aiming at the German soldier, who lifts his head to face the camera, smiling.

The film relies mostly on the dreary and bleak atmosphere and a pretty decent cast, convincingly portraying a scared, desperate group of soldiers.

It is a bit confusing, though.

5/10

W. E.

Oooh! What pretty clothes! What pretty jewels! And such nice slow motion shots!

Well....the acting is quite good, actually.

Overall, Madonna's vanity project (not my words, but many a critic's) is way too hectic to tell a decent story. It does try to with the current day story of Wally, neglected wife by her doctor husband. She is strangely obsessed with the love story of King Edward and Wallis Simpson, as her mother and grandmother were before her. So much so that she will eventually go to Paris to meet with Mohamed Al-Fayed because he has hundreds of letters written by Wallis Simpson that she simply must! read! The scene of the actual first meeting is somewhat ridiculous. She tells him she wants to know what she gave up for him, as everyone else was so interested in what he gave up for her. Al-Fayed then does the classic, I-never-thought-of-if-that-way line.

*eye-roll*

The story of Edward and Wallis is told so fitfully it does not even tell a comprehensive story. It only shows parties and paparazzi and desperate looking people. To me, this would have been the more interesting  tale because it has the potential of being a tragedy worth telling.

But, oh what pretty clothes!

4/10