Steineded How sad is this?

Executscan Expected more

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

hatlad I'm an avid history buff - particularly interested in WW2. I did not know until watching this film the first time that Ireland was neutral during WW2. Who knew? Obviously not me.The acting is great and very believable. The scenes are beautiful - right out of an Irish painting - and the plot is engaging. Some very good American and British humor, to boot.Just to be on the safe side, let me warn you that SPOILERS FOLLOW.The only negatives to the film were I found it hard to believe that a British bomber would make it all the way back from a raid over the Continent and overfly England to over Ireland and not realize they weren't still over France. "'Clocks' shot out" or otherwise, that one seemed a bit of a stretch.And, I love a movie where the "guy gets the girl." So, I was disappointed that Miles died and the German Count actually returned after the War to marry Mattie. At least they named their kid "Miles."

LydiaOLydia So you start with an intriguing concept - enemy soldiers of two sides held in a neutral Irish POW camp. Then..Well, the part after the 'then' seems to have been lost entirely.Really not much happens for the duration of the movie, save for a cliché'd romance and the predictable back and forth between the allies and the axis. It might be passable as just an average forgettable film were not the acting so bad. And, make no mistake about it, it's really, really bad more or less across the board.The bottom line: Don't waste your time, even if the redhead in the promos grabs your fancy.

JoeytheBrit The Brylcreem Boys takes as its subject matter a fascinating true situation but doesn't really seem to know what to do with it. Set in the neutral Republic of Ireland during WWII the story revolves around a group of British and German servicemen who find themselves interned in the same POW camp, separated by only a thin strip of land between two fortified fences through which they trade insults. And that's pretty much it, really. There's an unremarkable romance between a Canadian serving in the British RAF (Bill Campbell) and a comely local lass (Jean Butler), and a predictably resolved rivalry between him and German officer Count Rudolph von Stegenbek (Angus McFadyen), but for most of the movie you get the impression that the writers didn't really know what to do with the subject matter.The basic premise would seem to lend itself to a comedy in the vein of an old Ealing production: a prison camp from which none of the allied forces wish to escape, where their pay slips are received monthly, from which they receive day-passes to visit the local race meetings, and in which the only bars are the type that serve pints of beer. The comic possibilities would seem endless but the humour here is almost non-existent, as are any elements of suspense or tension, and the writers seem to approach certain aspects that could be of interest – the effect on Stegenbek of learning that his comrades slaughtered a French farming family who shielded Keogh (Campbell) for example – only to back off once the ground work is complete. The inevitable escape attempt, when it finally arrives, is glossed over in a few scenes, and the fate of the principals announced by a voice-over. All in all, while the film has some entertainment value, it's a big disappointment. And for my money any film about British POWs that casts a couple of actors from Charlottesville, Virginia and Dallas, Texas as the lead RAF characters has irreparably compromised itself from the outset.

fubar-2 This film somehow manages to take a fascinating premise and totally destroy it with bad writing and some of the worst ensemble acting in a film that I have ever seen. Even the usually reliable Gabriel Byrne gives a one-dimensional performance. And he deserves a portion of the blame for making this fiasco, being one of the producers. All-in-all a waste of time and money that doesn't even qualify as good trash.