hatlad I'm an avid history buff - particularly interested in WW2. I did not know until watching this film the first time that Ireland was neutral during WW2. Who knew? Obviously not me.The acting is great and very believable. The scenes are beautiful - right out of an Irish painting - and the plot is engaging. Some very good American and British humor, to boot.Just to be on the safe side, let me warn you that SPOILERS FOLLOW.The only negatives to the film were I found it hard to believe that a British bomber would make it all the way back from a raid over the Continent and overfly England to over Ireland and not realize they weren't still over France. "'Clocks' shot out" or otherwise, that one seemed a bit of a stretch.And, I love a movie where the "guy gets the girl." So, I was disappointed that Miles died and the German Count actually returned after the War to marry Mattie. At least they named their kid "Miles."

hkim-5 It is an enjoyable movie based loosely on real life events at the World War 2 era internment camp in Ireland where combatants from both Allied and Axis forces who wound up on Irish soil were placed in, as long as you don't think too much about the obvious. It is rather shallow and stereotyped on the whole, although it is quite well done in certain aspects. The extreme history buffs, those who know the actual background of Irish neutrality and Eire's relations with both Britain and Germany at this time extremely well, could nitpick over some of the history as depicted in the film, but on the whole, the movie does get most of the history fairly accurately. There is plenty of good material that could have been developed better here, besides the (mostly) accurate historical background. There is genuine dramatic tension among so many of the characters: the complex love-hate relationship between the Irish and the British (e.g. the camp commandant was a guest of the camp himself when it was a British prison camp for Irish political prisoners or how the family members of many Irish families around the camp are serving in the British Army), the unease among the prisoners about being in an easy-going internment while their friends and families are in a war where they are being killed or maimed (the German sailor who commits suicide over his family being killed in an air raid and the excessive brutality and super-nationalistic attitude of some German officers, for example), and of course, the whole premise about enemies in war having to be civil towards each other in a neutral country under unwilling circumstances, etc. None of these themes really gets developed clearly, in part because all of these are just mentioned too quickly and are left behind without being really developed, and also, to a large degree because most of the actors are, for the most part, rather wooden and their dialogue a bit too clichéd (Campbell, playing Miles Keough, is especially guilty of this as is Jean Butler, but at least, for the latter, it is her acting debut in a feature film, as far as I know. Byrne, with his character's interesting background as a former political prisoner turned camp commandant, could have played more of a role, but he is almost entirely a background character.) Given how underdeveloped and scatterbrained the overall film seems, the end narration seems like an evasive cop-out. It is annoying also that the writers seem completely undecided on whether Keogh is an actual Canadian or an American serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, as he is referred to as both at different times in the film. (Historically, there was only one American in the camp, who did escape, and was sent back by the British authorities, as per what happens to the indisputably American RAF pilot in the film. Most Allied personnel at the camp did leave the camp before the war was over, as the Irish government repatriated most, if not all, Allied internees some time in 1943 (but it is at least a year after the film's end) although the Germans had to stay on until the war ended.)

JoeytheBrit The Brylcreem Boys takes as its subject matter a fascinating true situation but doesn't really seem to know what to do with it. Set in the neutral Republic of Ireland during WWII the story revolves around a group of British and German servicemen who find themselves interned in the same POW camp, separated by only a thin strip of land between two fortified fences through which they trade insults. And that's pretty much it, really. There's an unremarkable romance between a Canadian serving in the British RAF (Bill Campbell) and a comely local lass (Jean Butler), and a predictably resolved rivalry between him and German officer Count Rudolph von Stegenbek (Angus McFadyen), but for most of the movie you get the impression that the writers didn't really know what to do with the subject matter.The basic premise would seem to lend itself to a comedy in the vein of an old Ealing production: a prison camp from which none of the allied forces wish to escape, where their pay slips are received monthly, from which they receive day-passes to visit the local race meetings, and in which the only bars are the type that serve pints of beer. The comic possibilities would seem endless but the humour here is almost non-existent, as are any elements of suspense or tension, and the writers seem to approach certain aspects that could be of interest – the effect on Stegenbek of learning that his comrades slaughtered a French farming family who shielded Keogh (Campbell) for example – only to back off once the ground work is complete. The inevitable escape attempt, when it finally arrives, is glossed over in a few scenes, and the fate of the principals announced by a voice-over. All in all, while the film has some entertainment value, it's a big disappointment. And for my money any film about British POWs that casts a couple of actors from Charlottesville, Virginia and Dallas, Texas as the lead RAF characters has irreparably compromised itself from the outset.

bettiem Broadway productions such as The Irish and How They Got That Way by Frank McCourt, movies such as Waking Ned Devine, books suchas Angela's Ashes by McCourt, music by the 3 Irish Tenors and the magnificent serial from Ireland, Ballykissangel, are all testimony to the "endearing charms" of Ireland and things Irish. All have drama, sense of humor and sadness - the Irish personality. This movie has a new twist, a philosophical expression of anti-war morality. Gabriel Byrne and all of the actors portraying the Allies, the Germans and the Irish in WWII, give us entertainment plus a lot to think about. This is a thoroughly enjoyable movie and the Irish dancers are great