I don't know how long the novel is that they based this movie on, but the movie has too many dramatic things happening too fast to too many extreme characters. The characters are well acted, and the incidents are not wildly unrealistic (only a little), but the way the incidents are crowded together is counterproductive. This story could have been spun out into a good TV series and come across as a more believable picture of life in the training camp for Israeli military recruits who are less than hale and hardy. Given an episode a week, it could have afforded to spend some time showing that most of the days pass in routine and that most of the recruits are not extreme misfits. It could have given a clearer picture of some of the characters and relationships-- when everyone's in uniform, a little extra effort is needed to keep them identifiable as individuals-- and not skimped on the background or the consequences of the dramatic things that happen.
2 Reviews
Well .. I don't recommend watching the movie.
golosovsky146 November 2010
Warning: Spoilers
The movie takes place at the mid 50's. Location: a training camp for physically and mentally ill soldiers who doesn't want to serve in the IDF, the new army of the new 8-years-old country. The director did and awful job. The problem that movie has no plot, no idea, no point. The characters - some are new immigrants from different countries and few were born in the Holy Land, but NONE of that is told in the movie. That is a fact that most of the Europeans who immigrated to Israel in the 40's and 50's were holocaust survivors, and each one had their own story of bravery and pain, but none of that seems to be important to the director. Instead, many scenes are showing some strange, bizarre and unexplained behavior of the soldiers, including some strange homo-sexual scenes, and any of those scenes have any connection to the plot, or have any logical explanation. The movie shows NOTHING about this incredibly interesting time, only a decade after the end of the largest conflict in human history which took the lives of 60,000,000 people, and the first years of a new country, but has so many ridiculous scenes which have no point at all. In addition characters and scenes disappear or being forgotten without any notice, reaction or explanation.. Actually the only scene that has a point is the ending of the movie, which is surely a very strong scene, but that is the only good scene and I don't understand why I waited 115 minutes to this scene ..
Again: there are some great actors in this movie like Oz Zahavi, but the director did NOTHING at all to connect the scenes of the movie and build it in an interesting way, and again he forgot about this thing called PLOT.
Really, don't watch it. It won't educate you, it won't entertain you, it may only depress you.
Again: there are some great actors in this movie like Oz Zahavi, but the director did NOTHING at all to connect the scenes of the movie and build it in an interesting way, and again he forgot about this thing called PLOT.
Really, don't watch it. It won't educate you, it won't entertain you, it may only depress you.
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