In my personal opinion, this is the most boring movie I have seen in my life. I had to watch it for a school project and ended up watching the last half in fast-forward because it was so boring. Opinions?
shareYou should give this one another shot. One of Ford's most underrated films, in my opinion.
"Dry your eyes baby, it's out of character."
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Found it quite boring myself. It's nothing against the subject matter, it's just that the screenplay lacks any dramatic tension. There's long passages with characters just talking, waiting, thinking. No real conflict in many scenes. From a dramatic perspective, there was no involvement.
Last Seen:
They Were Expendable (1945) - 6/10
I'm afraid that I'd also have to agree that this movie is totally boring. Now before you all have a go, I'm a real fan of 30s/40 & 50s b&w war movies, although I prefer the British side of things.
To me, America only really seems to have Pearl Harbour as a story, and boy has that been milked to death, so it was no surprise to me that this film didn't add anything to an already long line of disappointing US films.
It took me two goes to watch this in its entirity, and I'm really disappointed I bothered. If there's one thing that I've learnt from watching almost 70 war films, if Sir John mills isn't in it, then it isn't worth it!
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When you grow up you may appreciate films like this more.
sharerubbickrun: Yeah, I have a few opinions.
First is that you have no connection to what it must have been like to have been in the minds of those people.
If you want something you can better connect to, Try the book "Captured," by Frances B. Cogan, at your local library. There were many thousands of "round-eyes" caught up in the Philippines who suffered the cruelty of the Japanese.
My second opinion is that you should learn more about your country's history. It's a question of getting out of your own skin into that of other people, especially those who preceded you, which is not a bad thing to do, Gives you an appreciation of where you came from. And what's important.
I have to guess what makes this movie so boring to you is that you cannot connect to it. When this film was made, the U.S. had almost won this war and was pretty sure of victory, after having been pretty badly beaten up at the sudden start. But victory was not by any means a foregone conclusion. Remember that we almost lost this one at the beginning.
At the time this film was released, everybody knew somebody who was in military service, And almost everybody knew a family that had suffered a loss. An awful lot of families had blue star flags in their windows. As a kid, I also remember seeing gold star flags. If you don't know what that means. I suggest you look it up.
We tend to forget how very many millions of lives were lost. World War II was the most important time in modern history that involved the entire world. These days, hardly anybody knows a single military family, so there is no immediate connection. Unfortunately, that loss of connection applies to World War II, too., these days. The general feeling is that it's ancient history, as "unimportant" today as the Romans conquering Gaul. But you would be wrong to think so.
Now, having said that, if you can't find the combat scenes exciting, you're just plain stupid.
It's a problematic movie. It looks fantastic but it's listlessness is pretty toxic. Even if the story is about listlessness, there are ways to proceed without making viewers restless in their seats. The writers found no throughline for its endless episodic events (47 chapters!) or "plot." It has no pacing.
(For the record, touchy vets and John Ford fans, I'm a John Ford fan)