Vic Thorn Warming may contain spoilers! It was well known that SOE quite often lifted men that had particular gifts such as safe cracking out of prison and into their organisation. However for a soldier who is in military prison to hold a gun on a commando officer and force him to drive out of the gate is frankly ridiculous. Considering both the stance and weapon handling of Dyer leave a lot to be desired and he would have been very easily disarmed by the officer and sent promptly back to prison. However with lots of shouting and passion Dyer convinces the officer he can be a commando, another flight into fantasy. Dyer is apparently a man who saw combat before, goes through commando training and gets into fire fights. Then when all is lost he freezes, staring into space a complete zombie. I can appreciate that Danny was trying to emulate the thoughts that may enter a soldiers head, but the character development was deeply flawed and erratic. This film is apparently based on a true story, well the training part may be as to the birth of the commandos. However, in 1940 a note had been written by Winston Churchill to the War Office, saying that 5000 Parachute troops were required after Germany's success in using Airborne elements, some of these were drawn from commando units. The raid described in this film is really the raid carried out by C Company the 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, led my Major John Frost. Operation Biting was an attack on the radar station in Bruneval Northern France. A commando raid had been considered but found to be unacceptable due to the strong coastal defences, so the company with one RAF flight sergeant were parachuted in. The operation was a complete success. So in essence this film has conjoined the commandos with the Parachute Regiment, which is never a good thing to do. As for the film after the beginning I never fully recovered. Should this director or film company ever make a similar film again, let me just say this, good props but, please get proper technical advice, too many tactical errors, more on par with a cowboys and Indian film. As for the ending, it is a mistake to start with so many threads to a story-line and then not inform the viewer how they end. The film itself ended up somewhat as a mystery. My favourite character> The Scottish senior NCO, an excellent portrayal of a tough SNCO, much like some that I knew during my service with C Company 2 Para.

motman-42914 Apart from the model aircraft used, for example the three ME 109s strafing and bombing at the start and the burning bomber with a whole wing on fire - then it's not too bad a movie.The combat action scenes and the acting I thought were very good. The locations were excellent and there were quite a few twists and turns of the plot in that one never knew what might happen next. Or who, if anyone was going to get away safely to Sweden. One thing I didn't think rang true and realistic was those of the survivors reaching the Swedish border, then acting as though it was just a simple walk across the border. There were always German guards patrolling the border, looking out for escapees and others trying to get into Sweden.

Ornlu Wolfjarl Before I saw the movie, I read a few reviews in IMDb and was quite disappointed because I had just rented the DVD. This is one of the first real films the director/writer has attempted and I must say it's quite good for a first attempt. A lot of people judge the film by its historical inaccuracies and the plot. I'll say that actually the plot was quite good. It was obvious that it copied the Dirty Dozen and Where Eagles Dare, but it was not in a way that would make me feel annoyed. The event is based on the recollections of Ian Fleming (James Bond creator) while he was serving in one of the first British commando units. I guess they changed the event though, for copyright purposes perhaps. We follow through the training of the commando squad and then see them in action, as they land in Norway to sabotage a Nazi radar facility with newly-developed radar technology.A lot of people complain about the plot being inconsistent. I'll agree that the ending seemed kind of chopped-off, but it wasn't in a way that we wouldn't understand (for those of you who don't, check the Spoiler section). The acting was quite good and frankly the effects, battle scenes etc were also well done. Someone complained that the tactics used by the commandos were poor. Maybe they were, but let's not forget that we are talking about a unit that was completely newly-formed and was about to use tactics and strategies never employed before by the British Army. In fact the British Army up to 1930s-1940s was retaining the "code of honour in the battlefield" attitude and considered sabotage, ambushing and other covert operation actions to be "unethical". So they were venturing into new ground in warfare and that was shown very good (whether intended by the writer or not) by making these tactical mistakes.***SPOILER START***Well, now to resolve some questions people had in the reviews to the best of my abilities. Let's begin with the punishment of Rains (Dyer). Having been in the army for 2 years myself, I can assure that punishments during training can be handed out for little or no reason at all. It's part of forming discipline and also ensuring unit cohesion (if one does something wrong, everyone is punished). The trainers are just looking for excuses to punish people so that the trainees will be more careful and focused. It's basic psychological warfare. Rains is being punished because he talked back to his shooting instructor, and having been insubordinate before he was on a short lease. Secondly and most crucial, the ending. At the end scene people complain they don't know what happens to Sean Bean and the rest of the squad. We only see the Norwegian partisan and the radio expert walk into Sweden. In my understanding, Sean Bean was captured by the Germans (reflects on the first real commander of an SAS detachment, captain Stirling being captured in 1943 by the Nazis), and the rest probably were executed. In context, one does not need to know what happened to the squad and is better left at the imagination of the viewer. The important part of the film was to show us that they carried out their mission and completed it successfully by protecting the intel they secured and the guy carrying it, up until they faced execution/capture. That's a point to be reflected on soldiering. Soldiers serve, but usually people don't really care to know what happened to them (and I don't mean the officers getting famous, but I mean the common face-in-the-mud soldier). That's why we have memorials to the Unknown Soldiers. Again, this point was reflected perfectly (for me at least) at the end of the movie, whether it was intended or not.***END SPOILER***Most people focus on how badly the technical aspects of the film were executed to rate it, but they never contemplate much on points the film is trying to make or how it makes you think. When I watched this film it actually achieved what a good war film should achieve: It made me appreciate the sacrifices done by soldiers, made me understand how war is horrible and unnecessary, and it also gave plenty of good action. The film was directed and produced quite well considering it's low budget and was done by a very young director/writer. Personally, it entertained me, and that was its purpose. The 9/10 is to counter some really bad reviews. I'd give it 8/10 normally.Watch this film if you are in the mood for some world war 2 action and are tired of the old stuff you've rewatched a hundred times. It's guaranteed good entertainment if you don't come in expecting to see Saving Private Ryan.

TheUnknown837-1 In the fall of 2010, I spent a short time on the set of an independent film called "The Boarder," which was being shot in rural Nebraska. And one thing that I did learn while mingling amongst the technicians and actors was that even in something as aesthetically-driven as a motion picture, and with something passionate as a subject matter, it is still entirely possible for things to sour up and become impersonal. Movie-making is not easy, and the stress, I'm afraid, can wear out the artistic drive in some of us, especially if it's an early endeavor. That very well may have been the case, I'm afraid to say, with Adrian Vitoria's "Age of Heroes."Again, it's hard to imagine a film based on a true story to be passionless and impersonal, but that is the case here. "Age of Heroes" is loosely based on a World War II British commando unit's mission to garner Germany intelligence. The particular mission was drawn up by Ian Fleming, who would later go on to write the James Bond novel series. So a story about men who risked and gave their lives, even in a shoestring budget film like this, is hard to imagine as soulless. But it is.The way this movie is filmed, acted, scored, and executed, it's as if the filmmakers simply pulled the story out of a box full of potential stories and decided to roll along with it. Because it was their job, not because they particularly wanted to. Filming the battle scenes in this movie must have been very difficult, and unfortunately, the stress the directors and technicians had on them is apparent. It can be felt, and as a result, the scenes, meant to be white-hot, have a sort of staged, phony feeling to them.There are worthy actors in the movie, headed by Sean Bean, but not one of them as a real part to act. What little personality they have is drawn straight out of previous war pictures. The key example is a tough commando sergeant, played with zest by William Houston; really just a pale imitation of the much-more-impressive gunnery sergeant from Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" back in 1987.If the film can be redeemed, it is in that it does not appear to aim particularly high. It doesn't have a big goal, so it doesn't accomplish much, and the failure isn't quite as compounding as it otherwise might have been. And a brisk 94 minutes, "Age of Heroes" was already over by the time I was really starting to grow bored.