Having recently seen some decent output from the much maligned label of Asylum I did think that a little more care might have been taken on this obvious attempt to cash in on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. However any such hopes were dashed pretty quickly upon viewing this movie.
Taking place during the Allied invasion of France in WW2, the story covers the assault on the headland of Pointe Du Hoc, a tactical fortified German held outpost which was said to house a battery of six 155mm guns which could threaten both Omaha and Utah beaches of the Allied landings. Two battalions of American Rangers were charged with assaulting the cliff face, destroying the guns and then holding the headland until relieved from the beaches. The scene of the initial assault is depicted in the excellent 1962 film, The Longest Day and had the advantage of being filmed at the actual location. This is an incredible recreation of this incident which I urge you to watch if you haven't seen it.
D-Day Dog Company has the more complex obstacle of being filmed in the USA with a budget that is so tight than even some of the insignia on the uniforms have not been sown on properly. On a low budget such as this, some minor mistakes can be forgiven but here the writer laughs in our faces by having the Rangers give the 'Ooorah' war cry, when its historically known that this did not come about until the 1950's. German warplanes attack the American fleet, where as no German fighters got anywhere near the ships with the notable exception of Pips Priller who briefly attacked Sword beach. I'm not sure but I think we also have Omar Bradley personally handling an anti-aircraft gun and shooting down said German plane into the sea. I'll also need to add a few other obvious things, like there's no PALM TREES anywhere in Normandy, yet we get to see several on screen here. Pointe Du Hoc was also heavily bombed by the Allies prior to D-Day and the top of it resembled a moonscape (And still does today) The rest of the terrain depicted in the film fairs no better, the bottom line really being if you want somewhere to look like France, you have to film there, rustic red American farm buildings don't really cut it when Norman farms and villages are all grey high stone walls and blue shutters. It's a known fact the radios didn't work and the men had no comms with the US fleet for most of the first day but they seem to be able to chat at will here. Uniforms have errors all over the place and not every German wore and swasticker arm band, in fact almost none did during combat but they all seem to here. The dialogue is okay in places but just trite and awful elsewhere. I mean didn't anyone feel responsible for the fact they were depicting the lives and actions of real people here? I will say on the plus side it's obvious some of the younger cast took this seriously and did their best with what they had. A couple of stand outs are Jesse Kove (Son of Martin who briefly appears as a Pole and disappears just as fast) Mike C Manning, Issac J Cruz, and Sam Gipson do well with their roles and do far better than other cameo appearances but they alone cannot salvage this movie. The Rangers who did the assault and destroyed the guns fought their hardest battle in the forty hours after the initial assault while waiting for their relief from the beaches but there is no budget to depict such events in this movie.
There is a great film to be made about this heroic event in history, sadly, this isn't it.
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