It will come as no surprise to anyone who visits this
site that I love war movies and I watch a ton of them. Over fifty a year and that is a conservative
estimate. I am not easily impressed, but I also have a high tolerance for bad
war movies. I usually know ahead of time
what the buzz is on a movie, so I am seldom terribly disappointed. I usually reserve extreme umbrage for films
that abuse history in a callous way.
Movies like “Braveheart” piss me off to no end. And the more critical acclaim they receive,
the more angry I get. That is one
category of bad war movies – the ones that should have been much better and ruined
a good topic. The other type is the
movies that are just plain bad because of a combination of poor production
values, plot, acting, etc. Sometimes
this can be excused because of a low budget.
Hopefully at least the persons responsible were sincere and tried their
best, although their best was crap.
“Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers” is in the second category of
bad war movies, but it is so bad that there is no way the participants could
have been sincere. As far as doing their
best, if they maxed out on this movie, they should never work on another movie
again. No amount of experience and
improvement will ever make them competent.
To make this situation even worse, I had heard positive buzz about the
film and had hopes it would be another “Saints and Soldiers”. Nope.
Since I sincerely hope no one reading this will be
tempted to watch this movie, I will not bother to conceal any plot
developments. The film begins on June 5,
1944. We are pompously informed that it
is about a top secret mission. “This
story has remained hidden for 60 years.”
(By the end of the movie you will wish the story had remained hidden for
another 60 years.) Naturally, the
mission is crucial to the Allied war effort.
We meet the main characters nose hairs (this movie takes extreme
close-ups to a new level) at a camp in England.
The director had the avant-garde idea of hiding the microphone in a duffel
bag in the corner of the tent. You might
want to put the English subtitles feature on.
(On second thought, don’t do that!)
If you are watching this movie to scope out 1940s military hair styles,
you will be disappointed by all the shots that cut off the tops of the actor’s
heads.
Since they are Pathfinders, their mission is to
parachute behind enemy lines and set up a beacon to pinpoint the landing zones
for the paratroopers. If they don’t
succeed, their mates will land all over the place. Historical spoiler alert: mission not
accomplished! Would you believe their
already hazardous mission is complicated by factors beyond their control? It seems they will be dropping on top of the
crack German 91st Division which is hilariously described as “anti-parachute
maneuver specialists”. Before they
leave, one of our heroes parachutes into his British girl friend’s front yard
for supper. The rest stay in the tent
and regale us with stories that are more painful to hear than the English meal
their Casanova buddy is forced to stomach.
The drop features a brief bit of “Band of Brothers”
cinematography, as if we needed to be reminded of the other end of the
spectrum. They are immediately involved
in a fire-fight, I guess because those anti-parachute maneuver specialists were
waiting for them. Of course, the total
lack of noise discipline does not help. There
is a ridiculous scene where one of them plays dead to kill a German, but not
the German’s comrade who is two feet away.
We are treated ( I use this word very loosely) to a series of
increasingly nonsensical vignettes.
There is lots of aimless wandering around since they have no maps or
compasses - drat! When they do encounter Germans, the combat is
boring. An unacceptable development for
a movie that has nothing else going for it.
Perhaps the big set piece will save this sinking ship.
A German vehicle stops near where they are hiding and
then backs up as though the director had yelled that they had missed their
mark. One of the Americans comes running
out screaming and shoots two of the enemy and then runs away. At this seemingly provocative act, the
Germans calmly drive off as though nothing had happened. (I had to do the unthinkable and rewind the
movie to see if I had seen what I had seen.)
With that close call inexplicably out of the way, they put up the beacon
in (you guessed it) the nick of time.
Have you ever seen a movie that is terrible in every
single aspect? This film has it
all. Horrible acting. Atrocious dialogue. Terrible cinematography sprinkled with some
film school 101 stunts. Music that is
not only anachronistic, but it often does not fit the scene. Sound that is best described as garbled. Did I mention it took two directors to
accomplish this? (I would mention their
names but they are in witness protection now.)
The combat has been better done by tweeners playing army in the woods
with one of them filming on his cell phone.
Except their tactics would be more realistic than in this movie. But by far the worst aspect of the movie is
it was made to honor the Pathfinders who bravely played an important role in
D-Day. Talk about a backfire! (By the way, the movie falsely claims that
the role of the Pathfinders was unknown before this movie rectified that. While the Pathfinders may have been given
short shrift by history, they were not overlooked.) Those heroes did not deserve this
atrocity. Thankfully, unlike the
Windtalkers, this little known cinematic gem will not prevent a future attempt
to do justice to the Pathfinders. Soon
please, I’d hate to go to my grave with this being the only movie I had seen on
the Pathfinders!
GRADE = F-
