Band of Brothers (TV Mini Series) The Breaking Point (2001) User Reviews

Excellent filmmaking but some important details missing

[snoozejonc · 9/10 · 20 February 2022]

Easy Company advances towards the German held town of Foy.

'Breaking Pointing' is one of the most powerful examples of filmmaking I have ever experienced, but it could have done with a bit more information relating to Lieutenant Norman Dyke.

I am part of a generation born in a liberal western democracy who is lucky enough not to have gone through what the soldiers and civilians of WWII experienced. Episodes like this remind me how privileged I am for the sacrifices made by members of that generation.

It depicts not just the physical, but the mental suffering associated with the attrition of Easy Company. In doing so there is heavy focus on individuals who got through the trauma and those who could not take anymore death and suffering. This is the best aspect of the episode and I personally find it heartbreaking to watch. What makes it even more hard hitting are the introductory interviews that show someone recalling incidents many years later that still reduce them to tears.

The battle sequences are intense, frightening, and it is upsetting to see what happens to various individuals. That is what depictions of warfare should be like and you have to appreciate the filmmaking craft on display. Whether or not is a truly authentic representation of the events depicted, only those who were there are qualified to comment, certainly not me.

My only criticism is that the portrayal of Lieutenant Dyke misses some important information. Most accounts of him reflect how he is generally portrayed in the episode, but in my own research I discovered he was awarded two bronze stars for his actions in Holland and Bastogne. Also there are conflicting accounts about the circumstances leading to him being relieved by Lieutenant Speirs. One account states he had been shot in the shoulder just before he stopped the advance. The writer of this episode appears to have quite harshly assassinated Dyke's character to serve the dramatic tension of the narrative, which is a shame. I think if there is important information on record about an actual person it should be presented along with everything else used to immortalise them on screen. This for me slightly taints an otherwise brilliant episode.

All performances are superb as usual, especially Neal McDonough, Damian Lewis, and Donnie Wahlberg.

Outstanding episode

[tswiftma · 10/10 · 23 June 2019]

This might be the best episode of the first seven. It shows the emotional toll on Easy Company, bravery, leadership and loss.

This is it

[Stockmarketashto · 10/10 · 23 March 2020]

This is in my opinion the best episode of tv ever created, it really does not get any better then this.

Deeply emotional, intense , brutal, epic, gripping and Incredibly acted episode..

[akshatdave · 4 May 2017]

Spoilers.."The Breaking Point" concludes with a quote from Dick Winters about how the men who went through the battles depicted in this episode carried scars from them—even if they weren't wounded during them—and he expects that's why Easy members remained so close after returning home at war's end. What "The Breaking Point" depicts is the unending slog of this combat nightmare, a world where every other moment could rain death down from the sky or where two of your friends might disappear in a blaze of fire right in front of your eyes. It's a brutal, near brilliant episode of television. But it's also, crucially, frustratingly, an episode that doesn't trust its audience nearly enough to follow what's going on and how the characters' relationships are growing. The idea is that we've gotten to know all of these men well enough to really be shattered when some of them are brutally injured or killed. Those moments will have more impact than they would have even a couple of episodes ago. And by focusing on Donnie Wahlberg as Lipton, the episode finds the one character who can act as a kind of bridge between all of these men. In the depths of despair, Lipton is able to find exactly what each man needs to keep going, and then he finds a way to give that to each man. It's enormously emotionally draining, and you can hear it in the way Wahlberg's voice-over narration is so flat and affect less. This is a man who's had everything emptied out of him, and he sounds almost like a walking ghost. He's alive, but some part of him is still wandering the battlefields around Foy. Ultimately, "The Breaking Point" remains such a powerful episode and one that transcends its mild weaknesses because it finds the perfect intersection between all of the ideas it considers in that old, nearly universal idea that war is hell. The battle scenes are presented with the absolute minimum of tactics, instead suggesting a kind of unrelenting, unending black hole that more and more men keep getting sucked into. The deaths are often random and pointless, as when Hoobler accidentally shoots himself with the Luger he was so desperate to find. And when the episode comes to an end at the convent the men have reached after clearing out town after town after town, the beauty of the girls' voices mixes with the lost, grizzled faces of the men who seem all but shocked to have found themselves in a place where no one is trying to shell them. It, too, seems like a dream, but a much more pleasant one than the experience of combat.

The change of leadership

[anselmdaniel · 9/10 · 17 October 2020]

This review contains spoilers for the seventh episode of Band of Brothers entitled "The Breaking Point."

In this episode, Easy Company is still mired by The Battle of the Bulge. Relief has come for Easy Company and they are called on for battles near Foy, Belgium. The episode focuses on First Sergeant Carwood Lipton as he narrates Easy Company's forays and Norman Dike's inadequacies as a leader. The company faces its greatest trial yet as they must assault Foy and deal with low morale.

The choice to follow Carwood Lipton is great. Carwood narrates much of this episode and drives the mood of the episode. Normally narration is not needed in episodes like these, but it was required to reflect the situation Carwood sees. As Carwood is a first Sergeant, he is able to understand what the enlisted men go through. This was reflected well in this episode.

The conflict with the company officer, Norman Dike, comes to a head in this episode. I liked how this plot was resolved in this episode. The resolution made a lot of sense with Spiers taking over at the command of Richard Winters.

This episode's assault on Foy is great to watch. The direction and the writing is fantastic.

"The Breaking Point" is highly recommended. This is one of the best episodes of Band of Brothers.

Grade: A

Gutwrenching and emotional!

[and_mikkelsen · 10/10 · 30 November 2023]

The title of the episode says it all! This is where our characters are challenged the most so far, with the conditions and loss of comrades!

Everything in this episode was a combination of brutality and the feeling that there were no end to all this suffering! At this point we have grown to know and love our characters, so whenever someone is hurt or killed.. it hurts even more! We feel the pain and suffering they go through, and this, along with the previous episode, certifies this as a masterpiece depiction of war!

The action is great and very well directed! Amazing sound designs, that allows you to emerse yourself in the chaos of battle and survival!

This was an experience only this show has given me!

The greatest episode of TV ever produced

[kingnelsonofscotland · 10/10 · 3 May 2022]

It's that simple, this is the most heart breaking, awe inspiring, visually stunning and downright astonishing episode of television ever created. A genuine masterpiece from minute one all the way until the end.

a victory after a hard time of struggling

[v-56289 · 8/10 · 13 April 2020]

It is incredible what a person can handle.. I am freaking out even knowing that I am completely safe and warm in front of TV.. I can not even imagine how hard the times had to be for the soldiers hiding in the woods. This episode was a little more "political", though. Showing the long time of suffering, in cold, seeing friends dying, but still getting the strength to stand up, fight and even show leadership.. that is admirable!

Such a episode

[amindostiari · 10/10 · 11 July 2021]

It was one of the best episodes. It was really great. This series has a great director. The writing was also excellent. They showed the war really well.

Cold, heartbreaking, dark and phenomenal

[Goriz43 · 10/10 · 18 October 2022]

Wow, what an episode. Having heard from Buck Compton in the beginning of the episode how some of the losses of the men affected him in his life long after the war. Seeing the camaraderie and friendship that easy company had you sure understand why. Surviving the cold winter, together with your brothers is something else, seeing those two soldiers get their legs blown off was too much for buck, hell surviving one day in that winter would be too much for me.

Much respect to easy company.

Phenomenal acting, special effect and storyline.

Final thing that the story got wrong, luitenant Dike actually did a few heroic actions. Dike was awarded a second Bronze Star for his action at Bastogne.

Rest In Peace.

Rewatch, 10/10

[dcdude-26988 · 10/10 · 19 August 2023]

This was definitely my favorite episode in the whole series. Just to get it out of the way, my favorite character in this episode was Winters. My favorite things about this episode was all of it, I shouldn't evem mention it because every aspect about thos episode was just perfect. This was definitely the best reason as to why this whole show/miniseries is absolutely a must-watch. This show absolutely teaches the watcher that you should never give up when things go wrong. Such a life-changing show. This was literally the last episode that I rewatched, so since I just watched episode 10, I have to make a review on that.

Otherwise excellent episode, marred, again, by inaccuracies that are character assassinations

[random-70778 · 22 August 2023]

It is hard to criticize this episode, since everything about the attack on Foy, as a piece of series TV, is just astoundingly dramatic. Even the musical score that accompanies Speirs run though the farm outside of Foy would wake the dead with its rousing drama.

But this episode also falsely makes Donald Hoobler look like an idiot who shot himself with a trophy Lugar pistol, which is not true but plays into Hollywood views. Worse yet this episode also grossly slanders Lt. Norman Dike, who was awarded two bronze stars for heroism in combat and who was admired and well like by his men for his courage and self sacrifice while under fire.

The fact is according to interviews done after Winter's book, the Foy attack, and Dike's initial command, is badly misportrayed in the series in several elements. Dike was sent in with almost no support, there was not even covering fire nor mortars from the rest of company. Dike sent two platoons on a flanking maneuver, which was textbook tactic, but they hit up against armored defenders and were taking murderous fire, and and the three sergeants let their men to take cover and not advance due to the murderous fire. As Winters sent in Speirs to relieve Dike, he also ordered several companies to move up, and to open up in support. So what really happened was Winters sent in a seriously inadequate, lightly armed force, that attack failed to advance due to it not being powerful enough to dislodge the defending Germans, and after seeing his mistake Winters sent in Speirs, but also tripled the attacking force, added a huge amount of support, several times the firepower. In fact if you watch this episode you would not even know that Lt Dike was himself shot, and heavily bleeding from the wound, trying to get to and help the squads he (again properly) sent on the flanking maneuver

It bears emphasizing that Lt. Dike was mentioned in orders for courage in action in the Normandy jump. He also was awarded a Bronze star for heroism in Market Garden, when he was under heavy fire from very strong German elements attacking Eindhoven while Winters was celebrating with civilians in Eindhoven. Dike later received a second bronze star (the oak leaf award is for a second Bronze Star) for personally exposing himself to fire pulling three injured men from exposed positions while under a murderous 88mm arty barrage.

Not to take away anything from Speirs, but in order to achieve the goosepimple Speir's run moment, complete with rousing musical score, Ambrose and Hanks grossly slandered an heroic, battle tested, honorable veteran. As the case with several other gross misportrayals in the series, they chose the veterans who were already dead and whom they could slander without repercussion.

Less egregious but still a nasty falsehood is the claim that Hoobler was "playing" with a captured pistol and shot and killed himself. This is apparently used for irony by the writers. In fact every single soldier with him at the time stated Hoobler was climbing through some heavy brush, while advancing, encountered barbed wire and his rifle was caught in the barbed wire and discharged into the femoral artery with his rifle, not the captured pistol. The claim about the pistol was only made by personnel that were nowhere near the event, and in fact were likely motivated by jealousy for Hoobler having acquired the Luger.

Sadly the reliance in the series on Stephen Ambrose has resulted in quite a few others being slandered as well. Even Sobel is portrayed falsely, and the dislike of Sobel was largely based on his rigorous training, and anti-Semitism of some of the men, including, indications are, of winters. That anti-Semitism was common, so I am not picking out Winters and some of the Sargent's, but several Easy company veterans have noted that the dislike of Sobel, and the "Sargent's revolt" had that at its core. In fact most of the Easy company combat veterans interviewed by historians other than Ambrose described Sobel as a top officer and credited his rigorous training for their survival and success in combat. One could watch all of Band of Brother and not know that in fact Sobel did jump into Normandy on the evening of June 5, and organized a combat team and -- while outnumbered -- attacked and destroyed a set of machine gun nests, and in fact, in the dark properly navigated himself and the men with him to his proper assembly point in Carantan.