As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me (2001)

Directed by Hardy Martins
Written by Bastian Clevé, Hard Martins & Bernd Schwamm, based on the novel by Josef Martin Bauer
Starring Bernhard Bettermann, Anatolly Kotenyov, Michael Mendl and Iris Böhm

At the end of World War II, a German POW doing hard labor in the Soviet Gulag escapes from his Siberian camp to return home. He travels over 8,000 miles, mostly on foot as he is pursued by a Soviet NKVD officer.

Undoubtedly, an impressive story, this film is plagued with budget problems. Made with only 15 Million German Marks (about $8 Million US), the sacrifices made might have seemed small, but they really distracted from the story.

Filmed using the digital cameras that Christopher Nolan still thinks are being used, the image quality looks more like a PBS made for TV movie, rather than an epic German war films. That alone was a enough to lower the overall quality of the film.

The majority of the performances were strong enough to carry the film. However, at a running time of 120 minutes, the plot begins to seem almost as repetitive as the Nazi soldiers days had become. I understand that it is, in fact, the story of a man walking 8,000 miles, but there are ways of telling a survival story without them becoming tedious.

Had the film been shorter, or even told in the past tense like other, similar films, this could have been a great film. The story is definitely there. That is not being contested. The way the filmmakers decided to tell the story just did not do it justice. I had such high hopes for it.

My Rating: 5/10

Against the Sun (2014)

Directed by Brian Falk
Written by Brian Falk and Mark David Keegan
Starring Garret Dillahunt, Tom Felton and Jake Abel

A WWII pilot, bombardier and radioman find themselves adrift in the middle of the pacific ocean after an emergency ocean landing. Losing their food and water rations in the crash as well as essential survival supplies, they struggle to keep their spirits up and hope for a rescue.

To me, survival stories are usually interesting. Especially while being stranded in the middle of the ocean. Based on actual events, this story is truly remarkable. With many similarities to last years much anticipated movie "Unbroken", I suspect the hype surrounding that film pushed this one to the way side.

The writing in this was at times weak and a little cheesy. Specifically in the beginning, they described all of their plans in dialogue, step for step rather than just doing them. As the plot progressed, the writing became less of a distraction and helped the story move along.

While Angelina Jolie's war movie had much better writing and undeniably a much bigger budget, this had a lot of the heart that I feel "Unbroken" was missing. The relationships were formed on screen rather than leaving them to the audience to figure out for themselves.

"Well, now what?"

This movie had it's flaws for sure. But they are easy to overlook once you get invested in the story. You forget the little details and mistakes and just take it in as a big picture. It is a standard survival movie. But the fact that it is based on a true story (and they have pictures during the credits of the real men), that gives it a slight edge over some.

My Rating: 6.5/10