The Last Witness

source: The Last Witness

The film is based upon a true story, another one I never heard about. In England 1946, Stephen Underwood is a second rate reporter who likes his drink. He is also seeing a married woman. Upon investigating numerous suicides among Polish refugees he uncovers a vast conspiracy concerning the Russian massacre at Katyn being covered up by both the British and Americans. The film was a slow moving historical. The colors were drab. The dialogue was stale. There were no shown action scenes and the "climax" was the credit role. It mildly held my interest.

This movie isn't from the point of view of the Polish victims of Stalin's massacre. It's about the coverup by the Soviets and surprisingly suppression of the truth by the British government for appeasement reasons and finally the revelation of the massacre by a by a journalist. Alex Pettyfer is a bit dour looking here in a costume that looks more 20s than 40s and not too expressive but he shouldn't overshadow the story anyway. Don't expect an action packed war movie. It's about revelation of the massacre.

Throughout the Cold War, one of the great untold truths of World War II was Russian responsibility for the massacre of some 20,000 Polish officers and other "prisoners of war" in the Katyn forest. If Britain and the United States had tried to bring the Russians to justice, they believed it would have jeopardized the peace and revealed the real nature of Stalin's regime. Instead, both countries did their best to suppress the truth, even to the extent of espionage that included murder. Although this is a fictionalized version of these events, "The Last Witness" is also a realistic view of what journalists can and have done to bring the truth to light. This is a beautifully produced film, and it is difficult to understand what motivates some IMDB reviewers to dismiss it as "sucha a bad film." It is a wonderful and welcome film that follows half a century during which such a film could not have been made. It is also incentive to watch an arguably better film released in 2007 called "Katyn" and directed by Anrzej Wajda.

Saw this at a small independent in Crouch End. Have to say, the reason it struck a chord was the subject matter. Growing up as a Pole, born in the UK in the mid-60's and part of the post-war polish community, our parents lived this. We regularly talked about this crime perpetrated by the Soviets and I feel this film tells the story superbly, cleverly mixing the historical facts with a believable thriller style storyline. Good acting + good story + good drama = great film

This is a nicely directed, historically accurate movie. The cast is overall very good, especially Robert Wieckiewicz. The Last Witness will be appreciated by the more intelligent, thoughtful movie watchers, but probably not by those who look for excessive violence and explicit sexual scenes. By times The Last Witness reminded me of some of Alfred Hitchcock's suspenseful films. But I was more deeply moved by this one than any of Hitchcock's fictional movies, because I knew these events really happened.

Great movie that ties into the bigger picture of a German politician that flew to Scotland to tell the world about the NKVD's crimes; but instead he was silenced for life in Spandau prison.

The film shows the truth about the Russian genocide on Polish officers in Katyn and the consequences of silencing this crime by the Western Allies. A good, fast, surprising and modern movie! I encourage you to watch!

The movie, though premised on the WW II backdrop, isn't a war movie. It's a movie that chronicles how arduously a journalist pursues the mysterious surfeit of suicides of ex-Polish corps. He tries to scrounge for a story, defying odds, from clandestinely poised observers to potentially malevolent institutional resistance. The cinematography of the movie is very accurate in it's treatment of a sensitive subject, with the background score augmenting the pace of the movie, though it might raise the spectre of being a languidly paced movie, only to accentuate the realism that investigative journalism doesn't fructify as is portrayed in the stereotypical Hollywood movies. The movie is quite authentic in portrayal of the post war eras, with it's settings. It is a poignant movie, and though movies are meant to be enjoyed, it leaves you retrospective, pondering how farcical history can be and how it is usually forged by the victors of a war, often under the garb of sustaining the feeble political entente.

It's really a good movie. Based on a true incident- Katyn massacre. The direction, acting, camera everything is good. Deserves atleast 7/10