The Lost Battalion
The Lost Battalion
| 02 December 2001 (USA)
The Lost Battalion Trailers

Fact-based war drama about an American battalion of over 500 men which gets trapped behind enemy lines in the Argonne Forest in October 1918 France during the closing weeks of World War I.

Reviews
AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.
Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
charger_82 I stumbled across this movie sometime ago and I did not expect much of it. No star cast, no big budget, and no publicity whatsoever. But since I like war movies and especially ones dealing with WW1, I bought the DVD. I expected a lot of rubbish. Boy was I wrong. In my opinion it catches the horrors of war in a very good way. It also in a way explains why whole generations of young men were annihilated. A sad example is the stubborn gen. Alexander. When Whittlesey is sent out he soon finds out the attack is going nowhere and he knows he condemns Whittlesey and his men to certain death, should he order them to push on. He knows they will be out there on their own, with no back up from the french. Instead of doing the sensible thing and ordering the retreat, he lets his personal pride decide. And lies to Whittlesey. Well, thats when it all starts. I'm not going to give away everything, but the following siege is portrayed very well, with some decent special effects. Kind of like Saving Private Ryan on a budget. The actors do a fine job too. Now go forth and see this one, you will not be disappointed.I rarely watch a war movie several times, but this one I did!
robo8 I want to say the acting is bad, but I think it was the directing that made it so. I never thought much of Highlander (same director) but that one could be blamed on the 80s.This one however, has no excuses. People get shot while exiting trenches with a man in front of him!? Those kind of mistakes, along with an unclear time line, weird battle tactics, sub-par cutting and poor visual effects, makes this one a sub-par film over all.Then like so many other have commented, all this American bullshit. The German general being practically scared of his captured American private. Be prepared to swallow a lot of it, although in small doses.To sum it up, a not horrible but still definitely sub-par war movie in all aspects.
Claudio Carvalho In 1918 in World War I, in the Meuse-Argonne Sector in France, the former New York lawyer and Major Charles White Whittlesey (Rick Schroder) is assigned by Gen. Robert Alexander (Michael Brandon) to a massive suicidal attack against the German forces in the Argonne Forest with his five hundred men battalion. However, the forces supposed to be giving support through the flanks retreat and the communications with the headquarter of the 77th American Division are cut. Major Wittlesey holds his position with his men, mostly Irish, Polish, Italian and Jew gangsters from New York, surrounded by the German army. Without food, water, ammunition and medical supplies, only two hundred men survive after five days of siege.Based on a true event, "The Lost Battalion" is a great tale of bravery and courage. I do not know how accurate the facts are displayed, but I liked this movie very much. The battle scenes are very gore and realistic, in a war of trenches and bayonets, and the actors have great performances, being impossible to highlight an individual acting. Just as a curiosity, this film does not have any actress, only men in the cast. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "O Último Batalhão" ("The Last Battalion")
adam-1009 After watching this movie I was honestly disappointed - not because of the actors, story or directing - I was disappointed by this film advertisements.The trailers were suggesting that the battalion "have chosen the third way out" other than surrender or die (Polish infos were even misguiding that they had the choice between being killed by own artillery or German guns, they even translated the title wrong as "misplaced battalion"). This have tickled the right spot and I bought the movie.The disappointment started when I realized that the third way is to just sit down and count dead bodies followed by sitting down and counting dead bodies... Then I began to think "hey, this story can't be that simple... I bet this clever officer will find some cunning way to save what left of his troops". Well, he didn't, they were just sitting and waiting for something to happen. And so was I.The story was based on real events of World War I, so the writers couldn't make much use of their imagination, but even thought I found this movie really unchallenging and even a little bit boring. And as I wrote in the first place - it isn't fault of actors, writers or director - their marketing people have raised my expectations high above the level that this movie could cope with.