★ 4 / 10
**_What happens to a sergeant and a private
Wuchak
**_What happens to a sergeant and a private during the Battle of Hurtgen Forest_** If you ignore some glaring issues, this is a decent tale focusing on a…
**_What happens to a sergeant and a private during the Battle of Hurtgen Forest_**
If you ignore some glaring issues, this is a decent tale focusing on a couple of war-weary soldiers in late 1944 on the border of Belgium and Germany (Aidan Bristow and Matthew James McCarthy). It was obviously influenced by “When Trumpets Fade” from twenty years prior and “The Last Rescue” from three years earlier, both of which are superior productions.
One eye-rolling anachronism is a reference to ’Nam when America wouldn’t have troops there for another twenty years. I’m assuming it was a joke by the writer/director, Justin Lee, since he would know better. Then there’s the Army colonel with a beard (Corbin Bernsen in a bit part), which was something only permitted in the Navy. However, maybe there was no time for the colonel to shave in the intense situation (Why Sure).
The Battle of Hurtgen Forest took place from Sept 19 to Dec 16, 1944, and was the precursor to the Battle of the Bulge. I bring this up because the movie covers a couple of days late in the battle, which means December. Yet the flick was obviously shot in the summer months or early fall. There’s just no way you can watch the movie and take what’s happening as occurring in December; or even November for that matter. Then there’s the overweight Private ‘Boston,’ which wouldn’t be the case with battle-weary soldiers living in the bush for weeks on end.
So, it’s not a bad little story involving a handful of American soldiers, including two female medic lieutenants, but it’s seriously marred by the hard-to-ignore issues noted.
The writer/director’s previous film was the nigh excellent Western “Any Bullet Will Do” and 4-5 years later he’d release the solid “A Tale of Two Guns,” another Western, and the well-done crime thriller “Hunting Games.” His movies usually involve a small number of people thrust into challenging situations in wilderness areas. Those movies prove that he’s a proficient low-budget (direct-to-streaming) filmmaker, but this one has too many dubious bits to recommend.
It runs 1h 30m and was shot in the wooded areas southeast of Portland, including Estacada and Mount Hood National Forest.
GRADE: C-
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★ 5 / 10
No Bad Considering Its Low-Budget Heroics
zardoz-13
Writer & director Justin Lee's low-budget, loquacious, World War II epic "Alone We Fight" set against the background of the fireworks in the blood-splattered…
Writer & director Justin Lee's low-budget, loquacious, World War II epic "Alone We Fight" set against the background of the fireworks in the blood-splattered Battle of Hürtgen Forest suffers from slow-pacing and one incredibly stupid moment when our heroes neglect to blow up a light armored German vehicle in the woods. A bearded Corbin Bernsen shows up in a cameo as Colonel Bradley Armstrong and provides audiences with the basics that our heroes are up against the enemy. Afterward, he disappears. Nothing wrong with his brief appearance, but Johnny Messner is woefully wasted in a nothing role as Captain Hank Kedry who shows up near the ending as a Sherman tank commander. Meanwhile, Sergeant Gregory Falcone (Aidan Bristow of "American Mummy"), Private Michael 'Boston' O'Reilly (Matthew James McCarthy of "A Reckoning"), and Private Benjamin Archer (Philip Nathanael of "Hard Sun") are all who remains of the American Rangers. When Colonel Armstrong warns them that the Germans are poised to strike the aid station, kill the wounded, and rape the two female medics, Sergeant Falcone volunteers to lead a mission into enemy-occupied terrain to blow up a fuel depot which will halt the German advance. Sadly, the low-budget stands out, with less than thirty actors and actresses. The leafy, green forest conceals most of everything, and we are never given the perspective from the enemy's viewpoint. They are just ruthless, SS Nazis, and all they do is kill, kill, and kill. Our heroes-initially a quartet-are captured at the outset of the action, and these notorious SS troops force them to dig their own graves. One of the four refuses to comply to their murderous demands, and the surviving three turn the tables on the Germans and kill them. After this promising opening scene, director Justin Lee allows the action to slack as the survivors make it back to an aid station and recuperate and learn about the terrible prospects awaiting them and their friends if they don't counterattack. The basic outline of Lee's screenplay isn't bad, but he has this awful problem of dragging things out. Although we come to sympathize with the Rangers, we know that the formulaic War Movie clichés are going to lock down the action. Literally, nothing surprising happens during this respectable, 91-minute shoot'em up. Predictably, you can guess which of the intrepid three is going to die, and then the Germans settle down to whittle the other two down. Our heroes blow up the meager fuel depot and use a light attack vehicle as cover for their depredations. Unfortunately, they neglected to disable the attack vehicle, and the Germans pursue them in it as our heroes flee for their lives. In real life, I don't think that hardened, combat seasoned soldiers like these guys would have overlook the hazards that the light attack vehicle would present. Mind you, I struggle to keep up with these low-budget World War II movies, and I wonder if anybody advised Lee about some of the incidents in the action. However, if this movie excites you, then you should watch some episodes of the ABC-TV series "Combat" because the squad in that revered series faced similar perils on a weekly basis with greater realism. Altogether, "Alone We Fight" isn't abysmal, or as abysmal as another recent low-budget W.W. 2 outing entitled "Wunderland" which takes place during the Battle of the Bulge. Of course, "Alone We Fight" never gives us a genuine picture of the hardships that American G.I.s confronted when their absent-minded commanders plunged them into action in the Hürtgen Forest. Performances are competent as is "A Reckoning's" lenser Justin Janowitz's cinematography.
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AUDIENCE
3.0/10
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waste of bandwidth. good thing the file size is small lol