Overall Rating
  Awesome: 91.18%
Worth A Look: 4.28%
Average: 3.48%
Pretty Bad: 0.27%
Total Crap: 0.8%
2 reviews, 362 user ratings
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| Band of Brothers |
by Erik Childress
"Spielberg, Hanks & HBO Produce The Real Epic War Story of the Year"
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The new ten-part miniseries, Band of Brothers, isn’t just a follow-up to Saving Private Ryan, but matches the ambition and scope of that project along with HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon, the saga of the space program. Tom Hanks reteams with HBO again and brings along good friend Steven Spielberg to tell the epic tale of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division who parachuted into France early on D-Day morning. Crafted by the talents of eight directors (including Hanks) and seven writers (also including Hanks), Band of Brothers is adapted from the best-selling book by Stephen E. Ambrose (who served as a consultant on Private Ryan). At a cost of an estimated $104 million, it’s the most expensive television drama ever made and after viewing only the first two parts, you’ll agree that this a project worthy of you to stand at attention and salute.Each chapter begins with brief recollections from surviving members of the real Easy Company. One survivor even points out how boys who weren’t allow to sign up eventually committed suicide. “A different time,” he states so poignantly. The first images we then see in Part 1 are of dirty, sullen-looking soldiers. They march as if they’ve been to hell and back, until we slowly come to the realization that they haven’t even gone into battle yet. They may have signed up to help for the good of the nation, but they were still boys, and scared ones at that.
Flashback two years earlier to training camp in Georgia where Capt. Herbert Sobel (David Schwimmer) makes a habit of punishing his soldiers for the slightest of infractions. He also tests their endurance with the daily ritual of running up the nearby hill known as Currahee (“three miles up, three miles down”), a name which becomes their motto. Sobel’s second-in-command, Lt. Richard Winters (Damian Lewis), quietly suggests his disapproval of his commander’s methods, especially when it becomes apparent that Sobel talks the talk, but still isn’t up to walking.
The first part, directed by Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams, Sneakers), ingrains in us the grueling nature of their training and the hardships these men will suffer in the field (the various supplies they have to carry in their packs outweighs most of the men). Robinson also gradually builds up the growing camaraderie between the troops, not the least of which is their hatred and disrespect of Sobel and their increased approval of Lt. Winters. There are so many faces and names to keep track of that it may take you a second to identify them when they reappear throughout the episode. Still, by the end of the first hour, you may feel like a part of this assemblage and begin to understand their fears and what they’ll be willing to do for each other.
The second hour, entitled “Day of Days”, picks up precisely where part one leaves off, with all the various Companies en route to Normandy in the sky. The intrigue of this prologue is not just the horror our boys are in for, but how (or if they will try) to top the 30-minute D-Day invasion that dumbfounded us in Saving Private Ryan. Recall the beginning of that sequence with the terrified soldiers huttled together, listening to the sounds of gunfire and explosions getting louder and closer. Now imagine seeing those blasts light up the distant sky and being forced to parachute into it before your plane gets shot down.
This sequence, while notably shorter than “Ryan”’s opening is just as gripping. In just a few short minutes, the terror and tragedy of this event ranks with far more authority than the forty minutes director Michael Bay played with in this summer’s “Pearl Harbor”. Band of Brothers doesn’t play around with special effects the way that debacle did. While it’s apparent that a great deal of effects work did go into this project, most prominently in this opening onslaught, it never becomes about how “cool” it looks. The appreciation comes from the work of the actors, writers and directors in building up this event and then eviscerating us with sudden, shocking violence and even moments that follow the paratroopers from their first step off the plane and down through the firestorm.
Alongside this opening battle, this episode’s other highlight is a 13-minute extended engagement of Easy Company’s bid to take out the cannons of a German battery. Director Richard Loncraine (Richard III), who also directs Part Four, perfectly executes this operation from the strategy employed, the surroundings of the battlefield and the action itself, serving up what I’m sure is just a astounding prelude of even greater things to come.
The casting of many unknown and lesser-known actors only adds to the realism of the anonymity of the soldiers we may have never known about had it not been for the stories, memoirs and books shared throughout the years. Damian Lewis gets the most screen time thus far and makes the most of it with a quiet dignity as the soft-spoken Lt. Winters. He may not have any “flaws, vices or sense of humor” but Lewis convinces us that this is a man we trust and want to follow into battle.
Other standout performances come from Ron Livingston (Swingers, Office Space) as Winters’ humorous officer friend and Frank John Hughes as hot-blooded Italian, Bill Guarnere, who gets some disturbing news just before he takes off. (Hopefully The American Italian Defense Association will lay off HBO this time and stick their lawsuits somewhere else – and I don’t mean a drawer.) Some may feel a little uneasy at first with watching David Schwimmer playing the hard guy role, but he slides into it nicely eminently when his other character traits come full circle. Major names who either will or have already appeared include (former “New Kid”) Donnie Wahlberg, Dale Dye, Jimmy Fallon (from SNL) and Tom Hanks.To glaze praise over the continued excellence in HBO’s programming would promote me to the rank of Captain Obvious. In such a bad year for motion pictures, HBO’s 61* would easily make my ten best list come December. What is extraordinary about a project like Band of Brothers however, is that it’s able to tell a story that wouldn’t be possible with the time constraints of a feature film or the moral restrictions of non-pay networks. It also presents a showcase for a gathering of fine, young actors to show off their talents and hopefully give them opportunities to displace the Freddie Prinze Jr.’s of the acting pool. After only the first two chapters of this ten-part, ten-hour miniseries which promises to take us through the Battle of the Bulge as well as the capture of Hitler’s Eagle Nest, Band of Brothers looks to continue that preeminence and is destined to be as good as anything you’ve ever seen on television.
(NOTE: The episode’s other directors include former cinematographer Mikael Salomon (Parts 3 & 10, “Hard Rain”), Tom Hanks (Part 5), David Leland (Part 6, “Wish You Were Here”), David Frankel (Parts 7 & 9, “Miami Rhapsody” & “From the Earth to the Moon”) and Tony To (Part 8, “Harsh Realm” television series).
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=5520&reviewer=198
originally posted: 09/04/01 08:03:44
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USA
09-Sep-2001
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