Straight Into Darkness (2004)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I caught this on broadcast TV. At first it captivated me and I wanted to see more. But then as it wore on, I got more and more turned off by the two soldiers/characters. One was a psychopathic jerk, while the "sensitive" one didn't seem to have any balls. His constant flashbacks to his past became quite annoying. The station I watched it on didn't cue it right between commercials. So it started it wrong and repeated a good portion of what it had shown before. I saw that I wouldn't see the ending, and realized I didn't really care. The only reason I tried is that it got a decent Rotten Tomatoes score, somehow. IMDb's rating seems much more accurate. Maybe it got better in the second half - I'll probably never know...

Outside "The Offspring" and "Night of the Scarecrow" Jeff Burr might be recognised as a journeyman for commercial horror sequels (for the likes of "The Stepfather", "Pumpkinhead", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Puppet Master"); while competently fun still they were mechanically pitched. However Burr's "Straight into Darkness" feels more personal (being dedicated to his dead father), and I would say it's his most accomplished and creative production where its independent tailoring help provide his own vision. Burr's streamlined direction really did surprise me here, where it was more artistic, strange and atmospheric like something out of Michael Mann's 1983 "The Keep" (although there's nothing supernatural going on)… actually it's has the same surreal, dream-like feel where I would see it as a mixture of "The Keep" and definitely "Castle Keep" and throw in "Freaks (1932)". Burr interweaves a fairy-tale air amongst the horrifying spiral into the macabre madness of war. Again it's rather atypical, more so an uncompromising journey story of redemption and affiliation than just an all-out assault on the senses. Sure there's explosions and gunfire, but its trimmed and meaningfully unsettling in its execution. Especially the hanging trees' scene and the eerie final sequences involving an armed band of deformed orphan children taking on a German battalion with a tank, where its depiction of innocence shows it's never spared in war. The reason given to why the Germans are attacking them comes as a surprise, and only makes it even more gut wrenching. I wouldn't call it perfect, as the tight script is predictably penned and the moody narrative can be confounded by rapidly jerky flashback sequences that really don't share any light upon the characters, but just add more emotional baggage from the vague imagery.Two deserting American soldiers in the final days of WW2 managed to escape from custody by surviving a bombing attack on their vehicle. They head off in to the snowy European woods where they try to survive and this would go on to show how these two men really tick -- as one is psychotic while the other is naïve. While holding up in an abandoned house, they encounter a ragtag of orphan children who bare the scars of the war.I wasn't expecting much, but Burr projects a desolate, forlorn war-torn landscape amongst the picturesque Romanian backdrop. Stylishly striking set-pieces are formed, as the earthy action is beautifully poised, but at the same time hard-hitting and suspenseful. How the action and music went hand to hand had me thinking of Alex Cox's "Walker"… haunting scoring cues with slow-motion, emotionally over-wrought illustrations. It can be reflective -- pouring in blood and sweat, demons and pain with dark underlining.The performances of Scott MacDonald and James Legros as the deserting American GIs are commendably good. The script could have done a better job in delving into these two characters than it did, because there were complexities dug up. But motives are quickly squeezed out. A gruff looking David Warner appears and Daniel Roebuck also. The kids are convincing in their roles.Nothing spectacular, but quite an aspiring and gripping low-budget indie war effort.

Don't waste your time on this one. It starts off well and ends up in a mess. One of the most irritating features is that it is riddled with what may be flashbacks (or flash forwards)for the main character.But you never have enough context to put them all together or make sense of them. They appear like mosquitoes and are just as useful. It picked WWII as the backdrop to show the misery and futility of war.Perhaps it never occurred to the creative minds behind it that we might be speaking German today if the allies had decided not to fight. A poor choice of wars. One of the two soldiers undergoes a sudden transformation that is neither believable nor understandable. The ending appears to have been cut off before it led to anything satisfactory. I wanted a refund of my time after I realized it was over.

Somehow this film has been under promoted, under acknowledged and under represented. It is true fine art. And moving and full of heart and brilliance. The film must have flowed from Burr's subconscious in a way that masterpieces are formed. It is definitely not a "horror" film. And it is much more than a WWII film. You can reach a vast and personal range of interpretations, but at the very least, it leaves you with something that will stay in your mind and soul for ever. Put it up there with "Shindlers List" at least.Someone please pass this on to Jeff. I think that he dosen't realize what he has created here.Thanks Jef Burr ...It takes lots of courage to express this kind of brilliance.