Mining for Glory
With the war edging towards an end a group of soldiers including Mayer (Derek Simmons) are dropped in the heart of the Rhineland where despite having only been trained in the tank division find themselves working for the mine detail, sweeping for and planting mines. Mayer finds the job hard going and puts him often at conflict with Sgt. Bowen (Paul Wendell) who has become unrelenting in his abuse having been out there for too long. But as time passes Mayer will find he has to find the inner strength to battle his demons.
Searching for information on "Rhineland" and I found reviews which were glowing, which compared this to "Saving Private Ryan" and then reviews which called it a complete mess. You may wonder how a movie can have such wide spread reviews and it is simply because it is a modestly budgeted independent movie which like those reviews is sometimes impressive yet at others is weak. And being a modestly budgeted independent movie it at times has to cut corners which for fans of big budget movies will be annoying.
Now I have to say that the opening scene of "Rhineland" got me hooked, the combination of a piece music with an army truck driving past a line of obviously tired men trudging through the muddy Rhineland had a certain beauty, a certain craftsmanship about it which lifted my expectations. Unfortunately the very next scene featuring hand held camera work which gets right into the actors faces, rocking side to side in the process did nothing for me other than to remind me this was not a big budget production and brought my expectations crashing down. And that is in a way the problem with "Rhineland" it can't maintain a consistent level so you go from something brilliantly directed such as a scene where the men come under fire to a scene where the annoying camera work brings it crashing back down.
As such part of me is impressed by what writer and director Chris Grega has achieved and "Rhineland" is much better than some other recent modestly budgeted WWII movies. But at the same time it has glaring issues none more so than failing to give us enough character depth so that we connect with any of the characters. It becomes a case that these men, even Mayer who is meant to be our focus, end up just men in the meat grinder, people that we struggle to get to know and who will probably die.
What this all boils down to is that "Rhineland" was better than I had anticipated yet still had numerous issues typical of a modern independent war movie. The biggest of those issues is the failure to provide us with enough character depth so that we care for the men we meet.
