Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX
It is baffling that I missed this profusely profound historical film based on a man, possessing Olympian attributes and daunting, divine courage; Hemingway defines courage as grace under pressure; Jan Baalsrud’s (1917-1988) paranormal, formidable fortitude led to his escape from the Nazi’s in the spring of 1943, Norway; a magnificent testament, celebration of man’s will to transcend normalcy, inhabit the extraordinary and survive, defying human expectations.
Jan, (arduous, Thomas Gullestad) a Norwegian resistance fighter, along with eleven comrades, carrying eight tons of TNT, (Operation Martin Red) failed in their mission to eliminate a Nazi power plant in Shetland, Norway; Jan escapes, his comrades perish; wounded, fleeing bootless, through exquisite, unempathetic, snowbound Scandinavian terrain; haunted, hunted by the Gestapo, led by SS Field Commander Kurt Stage (1900-1947), impeccably perfect portrait of unwavering evil by Jonathan Rhys Meyers (his German, valiant); for over two months, with the aid of Norwegian citizens Jan triumphed Dante’s circles of hell; starvation, frost bite, gangrene, self-amputation; Messianic, only someone chosen could have prevailed. The culmination of his escape to neutral Sweden is one of the most thrilling, hair-raising, rescue missions of all time.
Director Harald Zwart and cinematographer Geir Hartly Andreassen, with a supremely qualified cast, cloak hero Jan Baalsrud with the “red badge of courage”, a trait, Mark Twain decreed was the foundation of integrity.
FOUR STARS!!!!
Peneflix
