To be fair I haven't seen this movie as yet but I will. What I want to know is why can't I find the orginal anywhere. Not it books or assorted film sites. The orignal was called Escape from Colditz. It may have been a made for tv movie but it was excellant. It was on TV like 30 years ago. The only one I remember who was in it was David Mc Callium from the Man from Uncle. Charles Bronsan may have, I do know they were together in The Great escape. I would love to find this orignal. I hope this version is near as good.
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Immature in outlook, professional in execution
Added 12/6/2009
Having read the story of Colditz many times, I can attest to the loose adherence to the truth in this film, but that is okay. The acting is excellent, cinematography good to excellent, props and costume excellent, plus more.
However the storyline as regards Damian Lewis's character (which is dominant)- Nicholas McGrade - is pathetic. McGrade is a tongue-in-cheek rebel who stabs a friend in the back through his selection of a lover. If you detest stories, as I do, that will provide you with a morally coherent ending but drag you through the sewer for hours before you reach that point, than avoid this flick.
To give the reader just some idea of what I am referring to, at one point in this story, McGrade exposes the beautiful and innocent character played by Sophia Myles - Lizzie Carter - to a Nazi air-raid, rather than seek nearby shelter, and leads her to a burning building in which women and children are pershing, in order to illuminate her mind to the alleged reality that she (Carter) and he (McGrade) are uniquely blessed to be living life at such an intense level. Only an immature person could conceive of screenplay in which it is supposed that Londoners - any of them worth writing about - were rejoicing about the so called excitement of witnessing friends and neighbors pershing in The Blitz.
Do yourself a favor, reject this movie and read the book instead.ESCAPE FROM COLDITZ
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If you like true WW11 stories then you have to get this one for your collection. Beautifully filmed with an excellent cast. 10 toes up
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OK war yarn with melodramatic ending
Added 10/10/2009
COLDITZ
(UK - 2004)
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
TV soundtrack: Dolby Digital
A desperate POW (Tom Hardy) plots escape from Colditz after learning that a former inmate (Damian Lewis) has returned to London and stolen Hardy's fiancée (Sophia Myles).
Lively addition to the 'heroes of WWII' subgenre, filmed on location in London and the Czech Republic, and directed with cinematic flair by Stuart Orme (THE PUPPET MASTERS). Richard Cottan's screenplay (co-written with Peter Morgan, based on the book by Henry Chancellor and the 2000 TV series "Escape from Colditz") cross-cuts between events at Colditz castle - where Hardy and fellow inmate Laurence Fox (DEATHWATCH) hatch multiple escape plans, only to be thwarted by a combination of bad luck and reckless bravado - and the less-interesting relationship which develops between Lewis and Myles, though the two plot threads merge neatly for a melodramatic finale.
Lewis gives the showiest performance, playing a selfish character whose charming demeanor masks a propensity for greed and violence, though Hardy and Fox are suitably intense in crucial supporting roles. James Fox (father of Laurence) and Timothy West make extended cameo appearances as senior members of MI9, while former teen heartthrob Jason Priestley plays a Canadian POW whose burgeoning drug habit pays lethal dividends. Fine cinematography and production values.
Originally produced for British TV and screened in two parts.
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Excellent!
Added 9/28/2009
Excellent movie with none other than the awesome Tom Hardy!...It just doesn't get any better than that!
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The Brits Great Escape
Added 9/10/2009
For those of you who own The Great Escape, starring Steve McQueen and a cast of international stars, Colditz will seem to be covering the same ground. Au contraire!
In the former, the story is character-driven (who can forget McQueen and his baseball?) while in the latter the story is plot-driven. The two main characters, Damian Lewis and Tom Hardy -- and a wonderful supporting performace by Laurence Fox -- are wonderful in their roles. The main plot lies in the relationship among the two men and a woman. When the Lewis character escapes successfully and looks up Hardy's girlfriend to report he is safe. Lewis falls in love with her and schemes to win her for himself. How he does this is cunning and obsessive and brutal -- and I am not going to spoil this part for you. He is a communist, as his dialogue shows, and he hates the war, the class he is in, and his hope that the war will cause England and its class system to fail. He is working class tough and has a temper that kills. Hardy is in the Queen's Guard and his love is in the same class as he is. He, too, obsesses over her and the picture he carries with him everywhere. Lewis is made a lieutenant after he escapes and he preens before mirrors. But Hardy is already a commissioned officer and this grates on Lewis from the start.
For a war film, there is virtually no blood and gore, and the tension of the failed escapes is a bit overshadowed by the tension of the three lovers. I thought the escape attempts were exciting and Jason Priestly very good as the rat in the camp.
Some have said this film is historically inaccurate and my response is that if that sort of thing bothers you, watch a documentary. I wish the mini-series had been longer so as to expand on some of the brilliant ideas for the "tools" of the British secret service. But again, this is not a war movie but a suspenseful love story set against the war and is wonderfully entertaining. Both sexes will find something to excite them in this film.
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Neither Fish Nor Fowl: Three-and-a-half-Stars
Added 7/27/2008
First of all, any movie that includes Lawrence Fox is worth watching (I haven't seen him in anything I haven't liked, so far.); next, I found this well-acted two-part series absorbing from beginning to end. Damian Lewis is also excellent in the role of the charming rogue who almost gets away with his villainy.
The problem with the story, it seems to me, is that it couldn't quite make up its mind as to genre: Escape yarn? Love story? Murder mystery? Espionage thriller? It is all of these, but, given the name of the film, I can see how anyone expecting the first might be disappointed, since the narrative passes so quickly over many of the riveting details of the great escape stories that emerged during the 1950s, which concentrated both on life in the camp and on the ingenuity of the prisoners in their plots to escape. The story of Colditz Castle, the impregnable prison camp where incorrigibly persistent officer-escapees of the allied forces were sent, is thrilling in its own right, and any film bearing the name, "Colditz," deserves a treatment as thorough as the one it got, for instance, in the old film with John Mills and Eric Portman.
Perhaps, if the film had been given another name--and try as I might, I cannot think of one--it would be accepted as on its own merits, which given the high quality of the cast, which includes Timothy West, are considerable.
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Acceptable over all, but one reprehensible aspect
Added 11/16/2007
There is one good summative review, but we may have seen different versions of the movie. The version I rented does not have prisoners returning.
What stays with me, and the reason I do not recommend this movie, is that an officer forges a death letter in order to open a woman's heart. Completely apart from the dishonorable aspects of this, the chances of someone returning alive from a known prison camp are at least twice as high as those of anyone still serving in combat.
I would sum the movie up as being about obsession. The man in prison is obsessed with escaping to be reunited, the man back in England is obsessed with charming a woman at any cost including dishonor so very deep I for one could never live with even if the victim died and no one ever discovered this.
The underlying theme, of an abuse of intelligence service authority to reroute the mail of the man in prison to the man dishonoring him, is very real and very sad.
Better movies of this type (prison side):
The Great Escape
Cool Hand Luke
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Escape From Alcatraz
Better movies of this type (romance side):
Cold Mountain: A Novel
Gone with the Wind (Two-Disc Edition)
The African Queen [IMPORT]
Return to Snowy River
Legends of the Fall (Special Edition)
One serious movie:
Why We Fight
Bottom line: you can do much better than this.
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