RESISTANCE
A WWII drama set in Nazi-occupied Belgium in 1944 around the time of the Allied invasion. Shot on location. Good casting. The plot centers on the illicit romance between a downed American pilot and a married Belgian farm woman whose husband is a leader in the local resistance. It's a complicated
situation fraught with danger at every turn and emotions run high.
This could be a good story and seems credible with regard to any number of possible personal conflicts, rivalries and/or power struggles that might conceivably have existed between townspeople who had chosen to be collaborators, agents or double agents for either side, and who are more than a little anxious for the war to end and the invaders to go home so that they can pick up the normal threads of their lives. Even the tension that exists between the husband and wife seems credible.
However, what is NOT believable in the very least is the characterization of Major Ted Brice. It just doesn't make any sense at all unless 1) the man was a complete doofus to begin with; or 2) when his plane crash landed he received a terribly hard hit on his head and forgot himself and his mission absolutely completely. As a highly-trained American officer and veteran of 31 important reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines, having been entrusted by his commanding officers with confidential codes and responsibility for the lives of his own flight crew and millions of troops on the move, for the most part Major Brice's behavior as portrayed is not just unprofessional and unethical but rash if not downright fool-hardy regarding his lust for this farm woman as if he were a love-sick teenager with raging hormones. I don't buy it. Still, he kind of redeems himself at the end of the movie, but I'm sure that there was a better way to handle his role.
August 4, 2010
