BrothersWar

Brother's War (2009)

The movie is set towards the end of World War II. One of the first scenes is of a battle between Soviet and Nazi forces, during which it focuses more personally on the Nazi soldiers than the Soviets. After the battle, one of the Nazis, Captain Klaus Mueller, goes into hiding for some reason. In the meantime the English Intelligence Officer, Major Andrew Pearman, slips away from his Soviet handler and is witness to something they are trying very hard to keep secret. Both Captain Mueller and Major Pearman see the Soviets massacre the remnants of the Polish government in Exile. A bit later a Gestapo agent catches up to Captain Muellers unit and after questioning them with no results kills them. Captain Mueller happens upon this scene just in time to take revenge by killing the Gestapo member and his companions. Unfortunately for Mueller he is then captured by Soviet forces. In the meantime Major Pearman confronts the Soviet commanders about what he has witnessed and rants about how the British will not stand for it. He is promptly thrown into a Soviet prison so the British will never find out about it. Major Pearman and Captain Mueller end up in the same cell and finally escape together. As they struggle to survive and keep out of the clutches of the Soviets pursuing them they find out that they share a common bond, they are both Freemasons. You find out that this is the reason that the Gestapo was hunting down Captain Mueller, since the Nazi's were at this time trying to eradicate the Freemasons. The two learn to trust each other and Major Pearman shares what he found out about the Soviets plans to take over Eastern Europe and Germany as the war ends. They then both try to get the information too the Allies in the West before it is too late. Along the way they meet up with the beautiful Polish Nurse Anna and save her from being raped by a band of Soviet soldiers. As they move west, Anna acts as a conscience getting them to do good deeds that slow them down, but shows their humanity. They have a lot of obstacles to overcome if they are to succeed in reaching the Allied forces. Will they make it in time to stop the Soviets sinister plans? Watch the movie and find out!

There are a lot of good things about this movie. The CGI effects are not one of them. There are several parts where they edit in explosions or muzzle flash from guns that are just unnecessary and look /really/ bad. On the bright side it doesn't happen all the time and the main focus of the movie is not on the battles themselves as much as on the political intrigue and the flight of the main characters from the Soviet forces. It was also hard in the first part of the movie to figure out who is who and what group they belonged too. Eventually I got everyone straight and if I watched it through a second time now I am pretty sure the first bit of the movie would be easier to understand. The best thing about the movie however was it's storyline. It was different and more complex than a lot of the WWII movies. The Nazi soldiers weren't portrayed as total evil automatons and you got a larger sense of the horror of the war on both sides. The acting was good (though I did think a few of the extras could have been better) and I was happy to see that Michael Berryman (you'll recognize him when you see him) was in it as one of the main Soviet bad guys! I loved the part about the Freemasons in it (perhaps because I just recently became a Freemason myself) and it was cool that it included the historical bit about the Freemason persecution by Nazi's in the story.

This is one of the best movies I've seen MTI put out and I would definitely recommend it. It's got a few flaws, but the story it tells and the good things about the movie outweigh the bad make it well worthwhile. None of the problems with it make it unpleasant to watch and I found it enjoyable overall. If you are a WWII buff especially this movie is a must see.

3 out of 4

Reviewed by Scott Schwarzwalder