This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
What Happens In Holland Stays In Holland
Plot Overview
SS Maj.
Klaus Kessler (Laurence Fox,) a VIP (i.e. B.S.D.) riding tall in the saddle,
sporting a Nazi Iron Cross on his tunic, with his entourage in tow
visits an art museum in occupied Holland, not to appreciate art but
to confiscate it. On a background track, we hear ersatz Morse
Code and the camera takes us to the transmitter hidden in an orchard
where a pretty Dutch maiden Benitta (Lucy Gaskell,) code name Magdalen,
is informing code Match Box that Nazi looting has intensified. She
has “infiltrated the SS as instructed.
Now based at target. London, please advise.”
In London trusted Capt. Edward Banks (Andrew Howard) who had been assigned the last plane in the imminent invasion of Holland is reassigned to operation Match Box with a classified destination and sealed orders on a need-to-know basis. Their plane is shot down. They miss their landing zone. Enemy action decimates their number and Banks perishes along with the secret orders. His remaining troops now number five, their target destination is far from any action, their orders are unknown, and their radio is busted beyond repair.
Meanwhile, a “rogue” Nazi Lt. Voller has frightened an SS bookkeeper Gustav Hansfeldt (Steve Speirs) into revealing the location of the stash and opening access to it for Voller's “band of thieves.” It's in an “impregnable strongroom beneath the barn” at a picturesque Dutch farmhouse in “the middle of nowhere,” on which the other two groups mentioned above are also converging. If that isn't bad enough, a Yankee unit also stumbles upon it at an inopportune moment.
Not fully explained are some deep hostilities that Kessler, Voller, and Gustav all hold for each other from their shared past. Their lust for vengeance is like to supersede any other goal they may have.
Ideology
Capt. Banks ended his pep talk to his men on their glider bound for action with, “God bless. Good luck.” He keeps God in his thoughts somewhere. As he's wounded & dying, lying on his back under a canopy of trees, he manages to gasp out, “Our Father … Hallowed be … Elizabeth!” Then his eyes go dim, and the camera focuses on the treetops above and sky beyond. A change in aperture suffuses the shot in light. It's a picture of a dying man uttering the Lord's prayer—or trying to—but dying before he finishes it, then being greeted by an “Elizabeth” who welcomes him into heaven. That's my interpretation, though there was no chaplain around to explain it.
A second death is highlighted in this movie when Voller's forward scout Max, who wears a crucifix under his shirt, gets wounded in the fighting and is shown lying bleeding on his back. Dutch maiden Saskia (Coral Beed) pauses in her flight to give him a moment of succor. It doesn't take Freud to apply the mind set of a Catholic who looks to the Virgin Mary to comfort him in the hour of his death, and project that onto the former death scene where one Elizabeth from heaven arrives with comfort. Fact is, Elisabeth in the Bible (Luke 1:35-36) was the cousin-german of Mary the mother of Jesus. A Protestant who finds more comfort in the word of God than in Mary is liable to think of that first death as a misformulated prayer along the lines of, (Prov. 30:5-6) “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” Protestants routinely accuse Catholics of praying to Mary. This story is set in “the fog of war,” and praying is spiritual warfare. I think sometimes our minds get fogged up over issues not clearly delineated in the Bible.
(Prov. 30:7) “Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die.” The soldiers spend some time discussing their futures should they survive this war.
(Prov. 30:8-9) “Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.” The renegade Nazi Voller was especially into “vanity and lies” having made his sneaky way across Europe after being posted on the Russian front. Gustav trying to mislead his captors punctuates his story with, “I swear,” the way a busted thief may take God's name in vain swearing falsely. The real issue, though, is what to do with all the loot.
Some of the British troops feel the important thing is that Hitler not get it, so they should just blow it all up. Others of them are thinking more along the lines of, “we all come out of it with something other than bullet wounds and war stories.” The Dutch maidens feel it should be returned to its rightful owners, though that might prove difficult. Gustav puts it to the Yanks: “America is the land of opportunity. Surely if the spoils of war should just happen to fall into the brave hands of such good men as yourselves—” And Voller's men don't want the whole kit and caboodle, they just want their “fair share.”
What kind of ending would we like to
see? For sure we don't want Hitler to get it, and there's a lot of
it, so maybe what they can't take with them should be blown up. What
can't be returned to its rightful owners can go into a museum or
something. As Capt. Banks in
his pep talk said he expected his men to do their duty, we, too, expect
it of them, “for
king and country,” now that Magdalen's radio has brought
them their orders, to divert it to British soil. Yet for Voller's
renegade Nazis, their “king and country” is the Fürher
and Germany. But they opposed that regime by Max dispatching the guards
and his keeping a sample of the loot, an ornate cross, on his person
to inadvertently clue in the arriving Brits. A case could
be made that they deserve a share as a reward. As for some of it happening
to fall into the hands of the brave Yanks, their American sergeant
(Michael Madsen) had a saying, “It's a helluva war.”
Production Values
“” (2006) was directed by Colin Teague. Its screenplay was written by Gary Young and Colin Teague. The cast features Billy Zane, Sean Petwee, Tommy Flanagan, Nick Moran, and Neal Jackson. Zone played a dapper Canadian pilot whose planes would fall short of their goal but not his bullets. Looks like he's trying to get a war bride in the process. Tommy Flanagan was cast as their bomb disposal man whose scarred face and bandaged hand makes one cringe when he's trying to decide which wire to cut. In fact all the main characters had distinctive features that they were allowed to exploit.
MPAA rated it R for violence. The special effects were second rate. Archival black and white footage would cut to current takes in B&W that were then phased into color, but I don't think it fooled anyone. The editing was pretty good, though, rotating through various subplots.
The spy radio looked like the real deal. I once had one from that era but a different model that I adapted to amateur radio. It was a rugged, compact design using miniature tubes—no transistors back then—with an expensive transformer that could manage both household current at 50-60 cps and military at 440 cps, with switchable taps for various voltages. It also had a built-in vibrator inverter allowing it to run on a car battery, but that was noisy when in use, so I think the one in the movie connected to the house mains through wires strung surreptitiously along the ground. Mine used crystals to set the transmitter frequency, but this one had enough dials for a VFO. The movie's used a random wire antenna strung up through a bush, whose impedance could be matched through a built-in antenna tuner. Ah, those were the days.
Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation
The editor and director did their job enabling us to readily distinguish among the various subplots, but we've got to do ours as well. Turn off the tablets and cell phones so you won't get lost for looking away. This movie will work best for those who are really into war action flicks and can take in due course the bouncing around from one set to the next. It's well plotted and concise.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Wake up and smell the 1990s technology. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three and a half stars out of five.
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