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When Trumpets FadeRating:
Release Date: 03 February, 2004 Retail Price: $9.98 OUR Price: $8.99 You SAVE: $0.99! Cast: Complete Cast (10 total) |
When Trumpets Fade Reviews
Trumpets
Although I liked the movie overall, I think it could have been a little more "historically correct." Also, the ending was a let down.
When Reality Fades
WHEN TRUMPETS FADE starts off great, but then devolves into something little better than paperback fiction.
This is really the first film to take on the often forgotten Battle of the Huertgen forest. In that, I applaud director Ron Eldard. The storyline is a grim. Private Manning discovers that he is the sole survivor of his squad. As other noncomms and officers become casualties, Manning finds himself rapidly promoted -- against his will. As a newly promoted sergeant, Manning is assigned a group of replacements and his own selfish survivalist attitude is sidelined in order for him to teach the new arrivals.
No doubt about it. In this movie does a good job introducing the death factory of the Huertgen and the partially overrun fortifications of the German Westwall.
Unfortunately, the film derails from historic reality with the renewed attacks on the Kall Gorge. The entire Kall River Bridge fight is as phony as the bridge battle scenes in THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. After a promising start, it appears that no one on the production staff bothered to read up on what actually happened on the narrow Kall trail and the struggles on either side of the gorge. The true story alone would have made for a good movie.
Despite the fact that the US Army cannot come close to breaking though the German lines, Manning's green squad continuously does so and wreaks havoc with the Germans.
There are some good fight scenes, but please do not confuse this nighmarish fantasy with what really happened along the Westwall in late 1944. Come on, now. American officers would not blow whistles to signal an attack. Why not just invite a German artillery barrage?
The movie was filmed in Hungary, no doubt to acquire military hardware and extras at a bargain. This movie would have had potential had someone taken the opportunity to read a book on the subject. As such, the battle in the Huertgen is just as distorted as the many Battle of the Bulge movies gone awry. I came away from this film thinking that it was Eldard's remake of HAMBURGER HILL by inserting 1944 Europe.
Buy this movie as military fiction. Some fine moments. Try to ignore the horrible soundtrack.
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