Full disclosure: I only made it to just over 15 minutes into this flick until I couldn't take it anymore. Of all of the hundreds of films I've seen about this or any other war, I can confidently say that this is absolutely the worst war film ever made. My first impulse is to always list all of the things that make a movie bad, and that always makes for a long review for bad movies. However, since I only wasted 15 minutes watching this one, the list will be small.
1. It begins with Omar Bradley as a lieutenant general instead of his actual rank of general, briefing a lieutenant colonel, a battalion commander, on the minutiae of the rangers' mission on the day before D-Day. This is something that would have occurred weeks before D-Day and would have explained to the colonel why the rangers were practicing climbing cliffs over and over again in the weeks before the invasion, since the rangers would, of course be on a ship in the English Channel for a few days before the invasion.
2. Next we see a major, the battalion executive officer, in a room onboard the transport ship with 3-prong electrical outlets that became standard in 1969. The major then goes to the room where the colonel is and starts aggressively complaining about how the mission is a suicide mission. This is of course something that a ranger officer would never have done, so he is promptly relieved of his position.
3. We cut to the deck of the ship where the men of the battalion are singing the sad strains of "Amazing Grace", which would never have happened in a U. S. Army unit that was about to go into battle, and applying black face paint to each others' faces, which only the Airborne used on D-Day (it wasn't useful for daytime fighting). They aren't applying it to reduce the reflection of light from their faces; it's being applied in streaks like it's meant to look stylish instead of being functional. Someone then calls out, "2nd Battalion, on your feet! Attention! Eyes forward (which is part of the position of attention)!" instead of just correctly saying, "Fall in!" The CO then goes to the front of the group and says, "Gentlemen, at ease. Smoke one if you've got one (which is illegal in formation)!" The CO then addresses his troops for the mission while wearing some kind of odd, wool-looking, unbuttoned green jacket that looks like something I had in the 80s with his rucksack straps going through the epaulettes and his rank insignia on both epaulettes instead of the right side of his shirt collar. During his speech, he says, "Let me get a hooah!" which wasn't a thing during World War II.
There's really no point in going about this crap pile and each error that occurred every two to three seconds.
Maybe I'm jealous that there are people that have enough money to throw away on making incredibly bad motion pictures and not caring about not getting it back, but I don't understand why films as bad as this keep getting produced these days.
Guilty admission:
I actually turned the movie back on to kind of watch while I did my Duolingo German lessons, and it didn't get even a little bit better. The last three stupidities that I'll mention are:
1. Usage of modern video game terminology, e.g. "Target down."
2. A medic carrying a sidearm in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
3. A group of Germans sitting in a large concrete position, playing cards, saying that the sounds of fighting had "died down". In reality, the sounds of fighting continued in Normandy 24/7 for weeks after D-Day.
In the epilogue, it was stated that Omar N. Bradley became one of the last men promoted to the "coveted" rank of general of the army (5 stars). In reality, he was THE last person promoted to 5-star rank, and no one coveted that rank in the Army or Navy as far as I know. That rank is held only in times of global warfare, and no sane person wants to see that again.
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