I am not going to differentiate between my opinion and facts. Please take this from the context.
First off, the acting is mostly terrible and many scenes seem very amateurish for what we are used to.
Secondly, you need to watch the movie with its original audio otherwise you are missing the point of the movie.
Thirdly, some scenes are very realistic, because they are real. For the making of the movie they had assistance from the military and I know for a fact that they actually did shoot the tanks that are shown being shot. I do not have information on scenes not including tanks, but some of them look real to me as well.
Here are the things that make this movie good:
The scenery: Everything shown is a good depiction of the time period.
The characters: The characters are complex, all characters. The movie manages to make that clear in the very short time that some characters are involved.
The conflicts and challenges: Conflicts, challenges and tensions between and for the characters are authentic, typical for the time and situations and they occur at a realistic frequency. There are no superficial elements to create extra drama. This movie works with what could have been real.
Here is what would have made this movie great:
Language and culture and its effect on the characters:
As mentioned above, you have to watch this movie with the original audio. I wrote this review only, because this is so remarkable and I cannot remember this being used so well in a movie.
The characters all have different native languages and very different language skills in foreign languages. They also encounter characters from other cultures with other languages. And this is very realistic for the situation that they are in and any persons in real life would have had exactly that to deal with on top of the other problems that they were facing.
What this movie actually does is lead the main characters through scene after scene that are sometimes very different. That is why I wrote "road trip movie" in the headline, because it is really a group traveling and encountering other people, as in typical road trip movies. And each scene or encounter is very different due to cultural backgrounds and language skills. They will speak English, French, German, (Belgian?), get talked to in a not understandable language and it does not only change how they interact with the other characters, but it also changes the dynamics within their group, which then changes the whole encounter. There are huge and sudden shifts in the group dynamics many times and they are all very realistic. I find the authors have very well understood the culture and manner of the main characters and how this would express itself and resonate within the group or towards characters they encounter.
As a viewer you could decide to watch this with sub-titles in your language and then your language will not have sub-tittles, if it is spoken. Or, if you have similar language skills to one of the main characters, you watch it without subtitles and can experience the scenes as that character would have.
Side note:
The German is weird. The actor is definitely capable of sounding 100% native (must have insanely gifted musical ear and voice control) and does so for as long as 3 or 4 sentences at a stretch. Also, he is yelling in German in one scene and he sounds spot on, when he is yelling as well. There would be no way to tell that he is not German. Then, it is completely different suddenly and he has a heavy accent. This changes back and forth throughout the movie. I wonder how that happened. (It does not seem dubbed.)
Point deductions:
The plot:
I deduct one point for the plot. Overall, it is a good plot. It is mostly realistic and personally I need that in this kind of movie. There were one or two times though, where I was thinking that they should have definitely done it differently and could have, also.
Acting:
I was thinking of deducting a point for this or not.
Not certain about this, but I believe that they cast veterans.
I see good movement and very efficient handling of equipment in the movie and it is something that actors just cannot do.
It takes actual soldiers to look like soldiers.
While I greatly appreciate this, I still deducted a point for it, because of how horrible the acting is in some scenes.
In summary, with original audio this movie is really good in showing the effects of language and culture for situations. There are some very realistic scenes of fighting, moving in hostile environment and encounters between soldiers and civilians. Deductions for partly very bad acting and the one or two slip-ups in script and props.
