The opening scene in this HBO movie is perhaps one of the grittiest and most realistic depictions of the realities of combat ever filmed, at least this side of the first 30 minutes of `Saving Private Ryan'. The viewer is immediately transported into the surreal world of death, decay, and destruction, where the panorama in view is a smoke-seared scene that the young soldiers labor through in the midst of all this horror. In this excellent depiction of General Omar Bradley's ill-fated decision to strike deep into the forbidding terrain of the Hurtigen Forest, accuracy and detail are everywhere one looks. The situation described in the film is quite accurate, and the young cast of mostly unknown actors do a convincing and credible job in conveying the insane circumstances surrounding combat, especially of the lonely, nerve-racking and suddenly murderous nature of isolated units moving cautiously forward through the sometimes impenetrable glades of the forest.
All of the craziness and chaos of battle is well presented, and the story line lends itself to the strong anti-war message of the movie. A friend expressed outrage at the scene in which a platoon leader shoots a deserting private, without realizing it is standard battle procedure. There is nothing uplifting about the scenes and situations the soldiers faced, no over-riding morality or contrived happy ending to dislodge the reality of the horror and futility of all this carnage. If you are looking for a pleasant evening of entertainment, a couple hours of mindless diversion, better find another movie. But if you want to watch a well-made and memorable movie that accurately recounts the events of one of the most ill-conceived and bloodiest series of engagements and firefights in the Allied campaign in France in the late Fall of 1944, and if you don't mind a sobering slap of reality hitting you in the face while you're being drawn into a thoughtful and engaging statement about life and death in the 20th century, this may be for you! Enjoy.
