Yar, you be here: Band of Brothers > Customer Reviews

Band of Brothers Customer Reviews (88 - 90 of 117 Reviews)

Compelling and True
I don't read non-fiction as a rule, but after seeing this mini series (really an eleven hour movie) I was truely compelled to read the work and learn more. What was truely suprising was that there wasn't really anything more in the book, they really managed to put it all on screen. You never really understand what war is like without living it, but when you see something like this you can at least grasp a bit more of it. Unlike Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket, etc. This story is of the unit not a few people. There's no one person carring the narative, no BS story of the Bad Commander VS the Good Commander, no Private Gommer on the can eating a shotgun blast, no Tom Hanks dying ever-so-sadly to save a guy who doesn't want to be saved. This is just the truth, the reality is more drama than hollywood can dream up, it's more frightening than anything esle to.

A Bargain At Any Price
There are many, many reviews here that adequately describe the quality of this production, the accuracy and the heart and soul of this series.

I specifically want to address the two "cons" mentioned in recent reviews...

First...the guy that says Band of Brothers is always on HBO is nuts...it's on now because of the 60th anniversary of D-Day and invariably it won't be there when you want to sit down and watch.

Secondly...it's true the special features are weak and for the money you pay for the set it seems like you get shorted. Until you watch all the episodes--including the most moving of all...the interviews with the real veterans depicted in the series.

I'm an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran and I feel fortunate to have served in Iraq of 2003 and not Europe of 1944-45. Every free person in the world today owes a debt of gratitude to the men portrayed in Band of Brothers...and this series goes a long way towards understanding that we'll never be able to fully repay them.

Buy this, rent it, or borrow it...but make sure you see it in its entirety.

The Real Deal
Band of Brothers is an HBO original series, based on the book of the same name by historian Stephen Ambrose. It is the true story of a company of American warriors in World War II - E (Easy) Company of the 506th Infantry Regiment, a component of the famed 101st Airborne Division. Band of Brothers is based in large part on the accounts of surviving members of that group. It follows the men of Easy Company from their gruelling training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, through their airborne drop into France on D-Day; their involvement in Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge (where they gained great notoriety as the "battered bastards of Bastogne"); their conquest of Hitler's Eagle's Nest; and the end of the war.

If you've seen Stephen Spielberg's fictional World War II epic Saving Private Ryan, you already have some inkling of the horror and constant peril accompanying the allies' assault on Fortress Europe in 1944. Ambrose's true account of the remarkable soldiers of the 101st Airborne will leave you wondering how any of these fellows survived at all. That they not only survived but achieved victory is a tribute to their training and their hardihood, but most of all their devotion to one another. The title is based on Henry Plantagenet's battlefield oration to his outnumbered and beleaguered men on St. Crispian's Day in Shakespeare's Henry V:

"He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, and rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, and say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:' Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day....'This story shall the good man teach his son; and Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remember'd - we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother...."

Band of Brothers is permeated by that same sense of comradeship through shared danger - of glory based not on conquest but on the loyalty of ordinary men one to another. Saving Private Ryan alumni Spielberg and Tom Hanks are the Executive Producers of the 11-episode HBO series, and Hanks is the Executive Director as well (in which capacity he directed one episode, co-wrote another, and closely oversaw the whole production). Spielberg's influence is evident in the look and feel of the work; but where Saving Private Ryan is austere and ultimately repelling, Band of Brothers is warmer, more accessible - more personal. One of the most successful features of the series is that each episode begins with reminiscences of one or more survivors. As the series progresses, you come to know these old guys and like them enormously. When the whole thing is over, you feel you really have seen the war through their eyes.

"We sweated bullets in order to achieve authenticity," Hanks said in an interview with the BBC. "There are two types of authenticity. What's relatively easy to accomplish are things like making sure the buttons on the uniforms are right, the ammunition is correct and the locations look like they looked in the photograph. The thing that's much harder is the motivation and the nature of the interplay between the characters. So we were always forcing every moment of every page of the script through this sieve of authenticity. We said, 'look, if we can't be sure what they said and did at any given moment, we must at least capture the emotional reality of being there."

Successful acting in a miniseries, especially one as long as this one, is really a different enterprise than in a two-hour production at the cineplex. Dynamism and inventiveness are less important to a performance than subtlety and sustained character development. (Do you really want to watch a dozen hours of Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth? Didn't think so.) Judged by that standard, the performances in Band of Brothers are very fine indeed. Damian Lewis, the young British actor who stars as Captain (later Major) Richard Winters, painstakingly reveals a new facet of Winters' adamantine character with each successive episode. In the role of battalion intelligence officer Lewis Nixon, Ron Livingston beautifully portrays Nixon's gradual descent into despair and alcoholism. Supporting performances of note include Donnie Wahlberg as Carwood Lipton, Frank John Hughes as Bill Guarnere, and Rick Gomez as George Luz. The miniseries' other production values - soundtrack, effects, cinematography, constumes, etc. - are likewise top notch.

There are a few flaws in the series. The earlier episodes in particular sometimes drag a bit. There is also a tendency from time to time to toss in a little melodrama, some small "moment" that is the war movie equivalent to the rising organ notes at the end of a 60s soap opera. Generally, though, the filmmakers resist such temptations to yank on the heartstrings. That is especially appreciated in parts like episode 9, "Why We Fight," in which Easy Company stumbles across a concentration camp for the first time. The encounter is handled with a degree of restraint that makes the shock and enormity of the discovery all the more affecting...

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Next Page