“The Forgotten Battle” is a Dutch movie whose title is actually translated into “Battle of the Scheldt”. It is the second most costly movie made in Holland. Second only to “Black Book”. The director is Matthijs van Heijningen. It is only his second feature film. His last movie was ten years ago, “The Thing”. The forgotten battle is the Battle of the Scheldt. The movie has been a big hit for Netflix viewers.
The movie begins with an animated map that takes us from D-Day to the capture of Antwerp. The action begins with the Germans pulling out of Zeeland. Unfortunately, they’ll be back. Before they go, Dirk Visser commits a spontaneous act of resistance that will have ripple effects for himself and his family. His sister Teuntje (Susan Radder) becomes involved with the underground. Her arc will be one of three that make up the movie’s plot. Another of our trio of characters is Marinus van Staveren (Gijs Blom). We meet him fighting on the Eastern Front against the Red Army. He’s Dutch, but has volunteered to serve with the Wehrmacht. He is wounded in a desperate fight in a village. His unit loses to Russian tanks and infantry in a combat scene that features the modern battle cinematography associated with movies like “Saving Private Ryan”. Marinus ends up with a cushy desk job back in Zeeland. He works for the local Nazi commander. The third leg of our trio is Brit William Sinclair (James Flatters). He is the one and only hot shot glider pilot in history. He is supposed to take part in Operation Market Garden, but his glider gets shot down over the Scheldt. The arcs of these three will soon intersect.
“The Forgotten Battle” has gotten good reviews, from critics who are not war movie lovers. A war movie lover will immediately recognize the unoriginal plot. Diverse characters are drawn together through the crucible of war. The script has to jump through hoops to get the three main characters together. We have a traitor to his country, a glider pilot with daddy issues, and a naïve young woman with a brother who is an incompetent resistance member. The cast is not strong enough to take your mind off the falling dominoes. They are wooden. Speaking of wooden, the biggest drag is Flatters. He doesn’t have the charisma to play a rogue warrior. If you are going to make a Brit the hero in a battle involving Canadians, he needs to be focus-worthy.
This is not a documentary, so we are expected to accept the improbabilities in the story. The worst of those is getting Sinclair from glider pilot to infantryman, but getting Marinus from the Eastern Front to the Scheldt deserves mention also. Since the payoff is an action-packed final act, I can excuse the finagling a bit. The assault across the dam is worthy of a good war movie. You might think you wandered into a WWI movie because it looks like trench warfare. The camera stays on and with Sinclair, our glider pilot. You will definitely wonder why he didn’t avoid this by using his noncombat status as an specialist. And wonder why anyone would make such a suicidal attack. Credit to the effects department for some truly gruesome wounds. And the weapons department for authentic firearms. You have to admire the Canadians for such a sacrifice.
And here’s the rub. If you are going to call your movie “The Battle of the Scheldt”, it should be about the battle. That battle is still “forgotten” because this movie does little to teach about it. It starts out seemingly interested in being informative. The scene with the Germans pulling out is Sept. 5, 1944. The day is known as “Dolle Dinsdag” (Mad Tuesday). It happened the day after Antwerp was liberated. The Germans assumed the Allies would follow up the fall with a continuance of the offensive. They underestimated the incompetence of Bernard Montgomery. Antwerp was an extremely valuable port that should have solved the Allies’ supply problem. Unfortunately, Antwerp is not on the coast. Ships have to reach it by way of Scheldt estuary. With the Germans controlling the Scheldt, Antwerp was unusable. Montgomery, who was preoccupied with his war-winning vanity project Operation Market Garden, did not push for capture of the Scheldt. It took a threat of being fired by Eisenhower to get him off his arse. And even then, he did not provide the forces necessary to dig out the dug-in Germans. The flooded Scheldt area was ideal for defense and the Germans were ordered to defend it at all costs. The Canadian 1st Army was given the unenviable task of bashing its head against this wall. Its losses were very high. The movie chooses to memorialize the Canadian sacrifice by depicting one battle within the campaign. The Battle of the Walcheran Causeway started on Oct. 31. The causeway gave access to Walcheran Island and Canadians (with some British soldiers) were tasked with smashing their way across it. The movie alludes to the Germans blowing a hole in the causeway to stop tanks. The assault was just as unsuccessful as the movie depicts. The movie does not include the flamethrowers. Including them would have helped the movie illustrate the hellacious nature of the fighting. The stalemate was broken by a landing of British commandoes. I found no evidence that a glider pilot took part. I did find evidence it was not as simple as the movie shows.
Even if the movie had a high budget (for a Dutch film), it was not capable of more than a simplistic portrayal of the Battle of the Scheldt. That is not my beef with the movie. The problem is that for a movie about the battle, it is very hazy on the battle. You get the impression the causeway was difficult to capture, but no idea how difficult the whole campaign was. Or the incompetence of the asses who sent the lions into battle. I know that is a Great War reference, but this campaign was very WWIesque. And speaking of those lions, the Canadians do not get the due they deserve. It is frankly insulting to have a British hero for the Battle of the Walcheran Causeway.
I started off with a crack about the movie being popular with the general public. I also know some war movie lovers, who I respect, who like the movie. As a movie, it is entertaining, if manipulative. If you have seen as many war movies as I have, you will recognize the plot template. It is competently laid out, but with weak acting. If you watch it as a generic war flick and overlook the implication that it is about a specific battle, you might enjoy it. Canadians might want to avoid it.
GRADE = C
The thing I don't like about the movie is seems like everything happens within 2 1/2 weeks. But at the end of the movie it says that area that the Germans were defending fell to the Allies on Nov 2. Which was almost a month and half later. I really wanted to include this movie in my war movies chronological timeline I have but I can't because the movie doesn't have dates during the movie except at the beginning and the end.
ReplyDeleteI would simply place it in Sept, 1944.
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