Walking with the Enemy

source: Walking with the Enemy

Early in the film, resistance fighter Cohen (Jonas Armstrong) and one of his friends have the opportunity to steal a German officer's uniform to enable Cohen to infiltrate areas that he would not normally be able to go. It's actually a concentration camp guard uniform, because it has the insignia of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (Death's Head Units - the administrators of the concentration camps), which ALL German WWII officers wore according to many film and TV producers. The film itself has the feeling of a made-for-TV-movie, but IMDb doesn't give any indication of that being the case. There are places with clear demarcation between acts, as if to enable commercials to be inserted for television. Additionally, I'm used to watching Jonas Armstrong in the BBC series "Robin Hood". Armstrong maintains two to four days of beard growth throughout the film, including when he is wearing the SS uniform, even though the SS were required to be clean-shaven daily, and maintained a high standard of grooming and appearance. I'm guessing that the filmmakers are counting on the vast majority of people not knowing that so Armstrong can use his "rugged good looks" to help win us over, in case we weren't already on his side as the film's hero and Nazi fighter. That's probably also why his hair was longer than the SS would have allowed. The film is based on the true story of Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum. The film's producers must have felt that a name like Elek Cohen would be a little easier for us goyim to handle than Pinchas Rosenbaum. It's a well-produced film, other than Armstrong's grooming, and an important World War II story about resistance to the Germans. I recommend it.

Based on true story, 'Walking with the Enemy' is a gripping tale of WW II Hungary. However, a couple of characterisations seem awry. In the first place, Otto Skorzeny is turned into a nasty Adolf Eichmann type character, when he was in fact a combat commando who was acquitted of war crimes charges. Also, Ben Kingsley's portrayal of Regent Horthy is probably too noble - Horthy may have been basically decent, but he was also opportunistic, particularly in the earlier stages of the war. .

I really like movies about WW2 Europe because I am fascinated by lack compassion the Nazis had... that they couldn't see the Jews as people. That having been said, the story line is great... Ben Kingsley is in it... it would have to be a good movie, right? Nope. Ben isn't in it too much and a lot of the acting seemed over the top to me. It isn't always clear what is going on... the accents are thick and at least for me, hard to understand. Also, everyone looks a bit too clean... I mean, none of it is in a concentration camp, but they still look a little too pulled together. It wasn't a horrible movie... just not great. I almost paid $4 to watch it on Amazon, but I thought to check to see if my library had it, and they did, so I saw it for free. If I'd had to pay for it, I would have given it a much lower rating.

Living in Hungary, I wondered what Hollywood had created about my country's history, making it in Romania! Well, they created a disaster. The characters are always calling each other's name, sometimes three times within a minute, just like in poor South-American soap operas. The Hungarian soldiers seem to wear Romanian uniform! When the Germans invade Hungary, they parade with Russian T-34 tanks! The hictorical facts are raped for the sake of making this movie. For example, military labour service for Jews is announced on posters, but in reality they were offically drafted. or the certificate of baptism is printed in English too in a small town in Hungary in '44 or they portray the deportation of the Jews from the countryside as if they had taken men to work camps first so they could depart women and children more easily, which is nonsense as all of them were transported to Nazi lagers. They show Skorzeny (probably because he had an ugly scar on his face) calling on Governor Horthy in the summer of '44 along with a Nazi-symphatizer Hungarian politician, Ferenc Szálasi, which is also nonsense because Skorzeny was a leader of a German comando which kidnapped Horthy's son in October. The list could go on. All I feel sorry for is the waste of my time and Ben Kingsley.

It's not that often there is a victorious movie about resistance in the Holocaust so it's quite a change to watch this well made and clearly written exciting true story. Just when you think there were no more interesting movies to be made about the Holocaust. The story is sometimes so hard to believe it has to be true. A Hungarian Jew disguises himself as a Nazi officer to help save Jews. His story from student to labor camp escapee to undercover fighter who saves many people is an engrossing tale of heroism and audacity. The story of Hungary in World War II isn't that often shown on screen so it's interesting to see how they went from one side to the other. Ben Kingsley plays the Regent of Hungary at the time and is portrayed sympathetically as being caught between a rock and a hard place. The movie clearly shows the role of the pivotal bad Germans and Hungarians and their fates. The cast apart from Ben Kingsley isn't that well known which makes them all the more convincing and they are all quite good. Unlike Defiance where there was James Bond acting as a partisan - the actors here look right for their roles. The production values are high and the locations and battles look quite good especially considering it wasn't a very big budget movie.

If you enjoy movies about WW2 or the Holocaust then you might find enough in this movie to make it worthwhile. It's a bit schizophrenic. Luckily the good parts outweigh the bad. There's plenty of wartime action and suspense, and for the most part it's fairly well directed. It's the personal dramatic parts that occasionally fall flat, usually dragged down by some expository dialog that might as well have the actors holding up signs that read "here's a little bit of the history." Ben Kingsley's first appearance in the film is a good example. His hairpiece looks great but he delivers an uncharacteristically leaden balloon as he "converses" about the situation in his country. In his later scenes he's excellent. The coda offers an equally clunky wrap-up of the story. It also left me scratching my head, wondering why -- since they acknowledge at this late point that it's based on a true life hero -- why they didn't just make it about that person. Was it perhaps a literary rights issue? If so, why bother mentioning the real person at all? The direction and editing are also uneven, generally good but occasionally terrible. The big action or suspense scenes are very effectively staged and edited, but the "fade to black" transitions at times are more appropriate for a TV movie needing to break for a commercial than for an (alleged) 80 million epic. And while the costumes and hairstyles are generally authentic, the lead actor's hair and the little boy's are way too modern, a constant reminder that we're watching a movie and these are only actors playing a role. If the whole story didn't depend on the lead passing himself off as a Nazi soldier, his millennial 'do might have passed muster. Note to future filmmakers: if directing a period piece, check out some old stock footage or paintings to make sure your hair department is on the ball... and don't hire actors who refuse to cut their precious locks. Don't expect The Pianist or Saving Private Ryan but it's also far from the disaster some of the reviewers here report.

I only watched about 20 minutes of the movie, before I finally quit. Why is it that directors and producers take such care with costumes and with women's hairstyles, then botch the whole thing up by having the men wear 21st century haircuts? The only men who had long hair in the 1930s and 1940s were those who were in no condition to do something about it, like those in concentration camps and in prison. Men did not wear long hair, did not wear their hair thick on their necks, and not touching their collars. But I see it time after time in modern WWII movies. Just look at photos from that period.

Melodramatic, historically inaccurate to the degree of slapstick comedy. Not even the participation of venerable Sir Ben Kingsley could pull that one out of the mug. The story and setting is fascinating and has not been covered extensively. Hungary is attempting to switch sides as the impending doom can no longer be ignored. Hungarian Regent Admiral Horthy turns his back on Hitler and secretly negotiates a surrender to Russia in exchange for being spared large scale destruction. Hungary's alliance with Germany has so far spared some of it's Jewish population and until this point somewhat protected them from large scale deportations. When Hitler learns of the impending "defection" of his Hungarian Ally he sends one of his most capable Special Forces Commanders (Otto Skorzeny) to Budapest in an attempt to prevent Hungary's departure from the Axis. Skorzeny, that has won fame with his daring raid to free Mussolini from his mountain prison, true to his reputation manages to kidnap Horthy's son Miklos and uses him to successfully blackmail Horthy into staying put. Hungary remains in the Axis, however Hitler makes sure that continues to be the case by sending German contingents to secure Budapest. Horthy abdicates and goes into exile. Without his protection the Jews of Hungary now become subject to Eichmann's "Amt IV" (office handling Jewish affairs) and subsequently lead to mass deportations to various concentration camps. Acts of heroism of the Hungarians saved many a life during that time period and with the Russians bearing down on Budapest the deportations eventually cease and Himmler actually begins negotiating with the Red Cross. So you can see the historical setting and dramatic events lend themselves for compelling storytelling but "Walking with the Enemy" fails on virtually every "front". The major historic characters involved then are shown and turned into caricatures. The usual stereotypical stiff, evil and inhuman template is applied to all Germans involved, the real personas completely ignored. Haircuts are atrocious, uniforms while overall not bad looking are worn incorrect (peaked caps pulled down over the wearers ears good god) with conflicting rank insignia and major front line awards galore on SS-Soldiers doing policing work for local SD (the SS internal and external security service) administrations (who were lucky to have earned a sports proficiency badge). A combination of brutality and ineptitude in the depiction of German forces which belie the complex struggles of anybody that opposed them and insults the super human efforts of the Allies to defeat them. The brilliant (and bloodless) operation of Skorzeny (the depiction of Skorzeny himself, a man with considerable intelligence and charisma, couldn't be further from the truth) is depicted as a raw, mindless and brutal takeover when it was anything but. NOTE to directors/producers/writers: Depicting war criminals in a human light, showing that they are people and not mindless killing machines, makes them all the more terrifying! The narrative and dialogue overall is cheesy and unrealistic and reminiscent of a badly made soap opera. They had all the tools, great locations, access to (halfway) accurate vehicles, uniforms and weaponry, a number of accomplished actors and decent special effects and they wasted them all. Not a tribute to history or the agonizing journey of the Jewish People during the Third Reich.

It is hard to believe that Mark Schmitt spent $80 million making this pathetically inadequate piece of film-making. According to the film's website this is what he spent (wasted). It is evident from the website that this movie was a vanity movie given all the attention on where various family members appeared in the movie. From what I have heard from the industry the movie was already in the can when they decided to add Ben Kingsley to try and save it. This explains the disjointed flow. The dialog is worthy of a high school junior. The good reviews can only have come from family members and friends. Now this is the kind of movie that the North Korean's should keep out of the movie houses