I watched this tonight and really didn't know what I was watching? Was it a comedy? I thought it was within the cast? It reminded me of the Casino Royale comedy film with Peter Sellers, who REALLY wanted to play his Bond role straight......but the directors didn't want him too! And he wasn't happy! This film is the same! I couldn't work it out, as the first half was somewhat of an ordeal and too much waffle, and I was trying to figure out what it was I was watching? Maybe it needed canned laughter? There are some brilliant moments! The Germans wanting to escape too and then the POW's changing their minds about escaping, and then not letting the Germans back in again! I can only agree with previous comments, but stay with it! It really does have its moments!
3 Reviews
Hilarious
Gubby-Allen29 November 2001
Warning: Spoilers
Spoilers throughout
This film is, I believe to be a sort of cross between The Great Escape (Greatest film of all time) & George Orwell's Animal Farm, an excellent novel, so it was always going to be difficult to make it good, but it manages it.
It's a brilliant idea, hilarious, bordering on slapstick in one or two scenes, but if you watch it as a comedy in a lighthearted way, you'll enjoy it.
You have the Allieds who are tunneling out & the German guards , who once they realise, ask if they can come with the Allieds as they don't like it in there either! They in fact do. Then the suggestion (when looking for a place to dispose of all the excess earth that had been dug) that they use the tunnel to hide it! There's much more like that too and this film does make you realise the ridiculous side to wars of days gone.
Look out for great performances from Stephen Fry, Nicholas Lyndhurst & Geoffrey Palmer.
I've seen this film twice on TV in 8 years, once in England in 1993 & once in Sydney about a month ago. It doesn't surprise me what few voters who have voted have scored it so highly. It'll never catch on though, or even be repeated on TV again, as Kevin Spacey or Robert De Niro aren't in it.
This film is, I believe to be a sort of cross between The Great Escape (Greatest film of all time) & George Orwell's Animal Farm, an excellent novel, so it was always going to be difficult to make it good, but it manages it.
It's a brilliant idea, hilarious, bordering on slapstick in one or two scenes, but if you watch it as a comedy in a lighthearted way, you'll enjoy it.
You have the Allieds who are tunneling out & the German guards , who once they realise, ask if they can come with the Allieds as they don't like it in there either! They in fact do. Then the suggestion (when looking for a place to dispose of all the excess earth that had been dug) that they use the tunnel to hide it! There's much more like that too and this film does make you realise the ridiculous side to wars of days gone.
Look out for great performances from Stephen Fry, Nicholas Lyndhurst & Geoffrey Palmer.
I've seen this film twice on TV in 8 years, once in England in 1993 & once in Sydney about a month ago. It doesn't surprise me what few voters who have voted have scored it so highly. It'll never catch on though, or even be repeated on TV again, as Kevin Spacey or Robert De Niro aren't in it.
Modestly funny but way too long
LCShackley13 August 2010
Warning: Spoilers
This Yorkshire TV made-for-telly movie is written by one of the most prolific Brit-com writers of all, David Nobbs. Maybe that's why it all seems to me like a 30-minute episode of a show that didn't know when to stop.
There are definitely funny moments here, and Nobbs moves the plot along by putting mammoth twists in the plot about every 20 minutes. But honestly, an hour would have been plenty to put across this material. 100 minutes is excruciating.
It's all played out, as someone else has mentioned, like Animal Farm meets Great Escape, with a few dashes of Hogan's Heroes for good measure.
Stephen Fry and Geoffrey Palmer are quite good, as are some of the supporting cast. Fry is more or less reprising his character from Blackadder IV; the pompous officer who won't listen to anyone else. But be warned, this plot is thinned out almost as badly as soup in the Stalag.
There are definitely funny moments here, and Nobbs moves the plot along by putting mammoth twists in the plot about every 20 minutes. But honestly, an hour would have been plenty to put across this material. 100 minutes is excruciating.
It's all played out, as someone else has mentioned, like Animal Farm meets Great Escape, with a few dashes of Hogan's Heroes for good measure.
Stephen Fry and Geoffrey Palmer are quite good, as are some of the supporting cast. Fry is more or less reprising his character from Blackadder IV; the pompous officer who won't listen to anyone else. But be warned, this plot is thinned out almost as badly as soup in the Stalag.
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