Review of Breakthrough

I wanted to rate this film higher, I saw it's in the 4's overall now which it really doesn't deserve. But after watching it fully, the ending does justify a lower rank so I'm giving it a 6. It seems to use stock footage from other war films while at the same time has a lot of military hardware filmed so it does have some kind of a budget going for it. Plus it has a cast that merits attention so I cannot see this as a war film that rates it's actual 4 score. With that said. Have you ever noticed that Soviet war films are scored very high on IMDb? I am going to guess that's the same reason why this film ranks so low. The overall vote on the Soviet films are bolstered by Russians and leftist travelers that I am going to say give it an overall plus 1 to their rating. Likewise here. this is a film about taking down Hitler (in a way), so I'm guessing for all those 10 votes the travelers give those so-so Soviet films, there are many pro Nazi types that give this film a 1 rating. As far as the cast goes, casting Mitchum as a 35 year old Colonel when he's in his 60's and not looking very excited about the role is the blaring casting mistake. Burton actually looks older then Mitchum here, like an old man with dementia in most of his scenes and is the second casting mistake. Mitchum would excel later on as a Naval officer and that is a role he can pull off, not here though. BTW what Colonel's (full bird old American ones) go behind enemy lines? That's what a Colonel tells a young Captain to do! And hey get a haircut reflecting 1944 Robert! Jurgens was good but that worn out cap didn't cut it for him being a Prussian General even if it was his WW1 cap. Steiger was good also and realistic and BTW the same age in real life as Burton and in much better looking shape health wise. Michael Parks rounds out the cast I recognize as Mitchum's NCO and Quentin Tarantino says he's the best actor still alive, FYI, so you may just want to watch it for his role which is fairly major. The hardware in the beginning looks close enough for me (probably taken from a Russian or East European war film), and using those post war US tanks for the Western front scenes is much more forgivable then using them as German tanks like in The Battle Of The Bulge! But what was up with using German bomber footage during D Day? Probably HE 111's from the Battle Of Britain film. That was crazy but only one scene so I can laugh about that one. Those anti tank guns are obsolete by 1944 also and not realistic. The film score absolutely sucks too as others have mentioned so in retrospect maybe it's worth it's 4 rating here, but I did stay with it and was overall entertained so I'm sticking to 6. The ending is stupid crazy but overall it was a lot better then many WW2 films from the late 70's so I'm going to give it a 6. Worth watching (once) for us war film buffs.