As a WWII history buff, I really enjoyed Countdown to War. You can see it is a high budget television production. It has scenes of the diplomacy involved up to the start of the war that include diplomats from Germany, Italy, England, France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia and the USA. The production is done very literally with a minimum of artistic interpretation. This will probably come off as very dry to the average viewer but for a history buff it was hard to stop watching. My criticisms of the film is that all the characters are English so it may be a bit hard at times to know what country is being presented. Some titles for the various diplomats introductions may have helped as even I was a bit confused who's side was talking at times (Polish?) but I recognized the major players although the average viewer will probably be lost. I noticed that David Irving was a historical contributor to the film which also caught my attention as I thought he had been discredited in the public eye by 1989 (he was). For history buffs this is an excellent TV production that I rate a high score of 9 out of 10. For the average viewer, it's possibly unwatchable as there are many different characters involved that are hard to differentiate due to all being English actors and accents playing different countries.
Review of Countdown to War
