Oh, good. The Nazis are still enemies. Much as I tire of Nazis being the ubiquitous Hollywood villain, we are now forced to re-check the sentiment every few months. Why? Because our jackass President and his club of toadies only respect loyalty, nothing else. And there are few more loyal or reliable Trump voters than neo-Nazis. If this continues, I fully expect to see movies that reexamine the Allies’ stance on Nazism and Hitler. For now, however, the Nazis still suck, which I’m sad to say is more of a relief than it ought to be.
D-Day required preparation. A lot of it. Overlord begins as Saving Private Ryan by air. In order to soften up the D-Day resistance, paratroopers are dropped hours in advance behind enemy lines with the mission of destroying a makeshift radio tower in a French church belfry. The scene is impressive, if a tad unrealistic: Hard to miss enemy planes in so tight a formation. Yet, that shouldn’t detract from a fairly genuine WWII invasion feel. The guys in the planes were just as vulnerable as the guys in the boats and on the beaches. A healthy number of invaders becomes a handful in a heartbeat.
By the time the American troops land, their number is already down to six. Uh oh, Captured and shot. Make that five. Oops, landmine. Make that four. Yes, four healthy breathing, functional American troops (Wyatt Russell, Jovan Adepo, John Magaro, Iain De Caestecker) survive to encounter what appears to be the same defiant French girl left over from Inglorious Basterds (Mathilde Ollivier). On second thought, after the Germans took over France, I’m sure every small town in the country had at least a dozen Mélanie Laurents.
Recognizing allies, Chloe (Ollivier) houses the Americans so everybody can get a good look at what’s going on in that church. Just what IS going on that church? What’s with the dead body drop off? Do the Nazis employ a convenient “take a corpse, leave a corpse” policy? And what’s with Grandma in this house? She looks like something out of a horror movie. Oh, this is a horror movie. You sure? It looks like a war movie. Nope, horror. Gotcha.
Just so you understand, half of Overlord is devoted to recognizing this is part The Great Escape and part World War Z. Das Braaaaains? The Thin Dead Line? Re-saving Private Ryan? This all raises the question: are the Nazis not threat enough that we have to deal with the undead as well? I wouldn’t expect the mixture of terror, duty, and mixed donut characters to work more than once. And it almost doesn’t here. The thick NYC accent in WWII routine is an awfully tiresome one, so I’m not sure why we need John Magaro, exactly … and the Overlord horror is kinda over-the-top. But then again, so was Nazism, which is why it remains important to loathe it, universally and eternally.
I don’t always agree with my given nation
It seems common sense lost its invitation
Yet through our battles internal
And my angst infernal
Nazism remains a douche foundation
Rated R, 110 Minutes
Director: Julius Avery
Writer: Billy Ray, Mark L. Smith
Genre: The Nazis still suck
Person most likely to enjoy this film: Paratroopers
Person least likely to enjoy the film: Nazis
