Rhineland

Released by: VCI entertainment
Released on: 2/1/2011
Director: Chris Grega
Cast: Derek Simmons, Paul Wendell, Travis Estes
Year: 2007
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The Movie:
A film set toward the end of the second World War on the European front, Rhineland follows the story of a young soldier, Mayer (Derek Simmons), trained in anti-tank combat, who is thrown into a mine squadron along with a few other soldiers. The lieutenant of the squadron, Westman (Travis Estes) and his sergeant take the replacement soldiers to tack on with a larger battalion to sweep for mines. The sergeant, Bowen (Paul Wendell) is a war-hardened soldier who sees Mayer as a coward and gives him a tough time throughout the film. An incident early on makes Mayer question his own ability to fight the war and come out alive.

The replacement soldiers have no real combat training, no mine disarmament training, and as the story progresses its pretty apparent that Westman is on a downward spiral in his ability to command. He keeps being thrown into mission after mission and his group of soldiers continues to dwindle. The tension between Mayer and Bowen escalates, and a series of events pushes Mayer to the point that he is forced to confront his fears and remorse and do what he has to in order to survive.

Director Chris Grega has assembled a movie that looks and feels like a much bigger film than it is. With the help of World War II re-enactment groups he's managed to bring authenticity on a level that rivals expensive Hollywood productions, but at the same time keeping the look of the film from becoming the main focus. He and his crew should be commended on what they accomplished with this production. To make an independent picture like this for the kind of money they surely had to work with is incredibly admirable.

The movie is filled with a cast played by relatively unknown actors, and there's not a bad one in the bunch. The standout performance is from Paul Wendell as Sgt. Bowen. He's got the war-torn, bitter soldier down well and helps bring the film up a notch in believability. He's cold, abrupt, and hard-edged, but not to the point of being stereotypical.

Two drawbacks for this viewer, that if missing would have put this one up on an even higher tier. First is the music. It just doesn't seem fitting. It's violin music of the type that seems overused in dramas and calls too much attention to itself (partly because it's so much louder than the rest of the movie) and takes away from the realism the movie has to offer. No music at all would have been better. The other hang up is the use of a shaky camera and wonky shutter speed. Sure, it's a technique used to help with conveying chaos and energy in a high velocity scene, but for these eyes it does nothing more than cause confusion, and once the action has settled down, it takes a moment to figure out who's who and what happened. To be honest both of these are not huge distractions, but the movie would have benefited far more from the lack of these cinematic enhancements.

Rhineland is a well paced, excellently shot story, with well-orchestrated battle scenes and a competent group of actors. Grega does an amazing job of capturing the intensity of close range battle and in portraying the soldiers as lost souls, waiting for either their time to die or their next orders. This is an impressive movie.

Video/Audio/Extras:
VCI brings the film to DVD with a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation. The movie is void of a lot of colors, taking place in the winter, and with near constant overcast. And the clothes are all Army green. But the blood (which there is plenty of) really jumps out when its used, which makes for an interesting contrast. The video quality actually varies from time to time, sometimes looking quite clear, other times with a considerable amount of noise. Its never distracting though, and for the majority of the running time the picture looks just fine. The audio is a 2.0 Dolby Digital track and is free of any noticeable defects. The balance is pretty good, other than the aforementioned music being a lot louder than the rest of the movie. But for a 2-channel audio track, the background gunfire and explosions sound great. Not a whole lot of sub woofer action though. In fact it was barely noticed.

Lots of extras on this release, starting with two different commentaries, one by the director and one by the main characters. Both offer up the typical info one hopes to get from a commentary track, but both of them drag a bit. One commentary mixing may have worked better. Neither is a bad commentary though, just lacking a bit and maybe needed someone to help keep things going. “The Making of Rhineland” runs 16:32 and is certainly interesting, with actors sharing their thoughts and the director talking about how the film came about and the time it took to produce it. There are plenty of behind the scenes images to behold. Next is just under 21minutes of deleted and extended scenes, done the right way. There's a play all function, a play all with director commentary, a play all with actor commentary, and the option of selecting certain scenes. This is how EVERY DVD or Blu-ray company should package their deleted scenes. A photo gallery of 2m and 30s follows feature production stills, and there is a trailer for the feature. The last item is a 19-minute short film called “CapDance” by Sean Keough.


The Final Word:
A well-made indie film, Rhineland delivers on a number of levels. VCI puts a great batch of extras into the mix, making this a DVD worth picking up. It's really well done and a great war film. Chris Grega is a talent to watch. Oh and one other thing: not one single female on the screen. That's a piece of trivia to tuck away.