Company K (2004)

I love this movie so much

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Sorry, gang, but this film, "Company K" was awful! Lets start with a forced and contrived plot line, complete with banal and clichéd dialog, delivered in wavy line readings, by wooden actors, playing the usual array of depressing stereotypical Infantry soldiers! This movie, shot in Pennsylvania,looks about as much like a World War One Battlefield as the Mall of America!There have been too many ultra-realistic War Movies made in the last twenty years to allow this dud, with it's back yard production effects, to even appear to be authentic! The actors look unsure of their roles, as Marines, especially when maneuvering on a battle field! The special effects is bush league, at best, with wimpy looking gore,and tomato ketchup blood! "No Man's Land" looks like the poorly maintained yard of that cranky old "difficult" guy, in some suburban neighborhood! Grass didn't grow near the trench system!I love the fake 1903 Springfield Rifles! Somewhere, an American Legion Chapter is missing its Honor Guard Rifles! If the German Army on World War One had fought like the Germans in this movie, the war would have been over in a month!Forget this Turkey, folks! It gives "Fake" a bad name!

I have no doubt the book is one of the greats about the first world war, sadly this film doesn't do it justice. The episodic nature of the movie, while faithful to the style of the book, really doesn't work that well, preventing us from getting to really know the characters. The episodes we see tend to leave things unexplained, or leave us feeling we'd like to see or know more about what happened, and this results in the film being ultimately unsatisfying. The war itself, which was known by all protagonists as being fought in the most appallingly squalid, dirty, lice-ridden and horrific conditions, is shown here being fought in immaculately clean and neat trench systems that look like they have just been built in a B&Q depot, the corrugated iron sheets forming the trench sides are gleaming, pristine and new, the duck-boards and ground is neatly swept and tidy, and the men and their uniforms far too clean and smart to seem even remotely realistic. We are expected to believe that men are traumatised and mentally scarred for life by the conditions of war, and yet it all looks like it's set in a paintballing arena with no excess dirt or mud to be seen! It tries to be a good film, but somehow misses, and apart from the lead character, everyone else in the movie was just a cut-out character that you just couldn't feel anything for........ there really have been so many better movies on this subject that this one pales in comparison... sorry folks..

For this movie, my recommendation is to read the book. I have not, and do not discount the power which may have been conveyed by the original author who lived the experiences.But all credibility which this movie may have had, washed away for me because there was no dirt, no mud, no decay, no rats, no lice, no corpse stink, no depiction of the truly terrible conditions in which these people fought and slogged and died.All of the soldiers' kit was unblemished, unstained, unmuddied, looking like the producer did not want to risk the expense of getting it cleaned upon its return to the props department. The trenches looked like they had been built that afternoon.You want to tell an effective story with pictures, you have to make the pictures right, or the story doesn't get told.Go watch "All Quiet On The Western Front" for the quintessential depiction of World War I.

I understand that the book was episodic, but that does not mean it translates into a good film that way.Poorly directed and acted, not to mention produced. How tough would it have been for the actors to at least have gotten haircuts? Not the best film about WW1. Not even close. Perhaps having one person being the producer, writer and director is not the best idea? The actors were not in the least convincing.Someone should have said "Whoa" before this was put together. Oh, and I wrote this review using the same disjointed style the director of this movie used. Do you think it made for a better review this way? I did not think so.