Age of Heroes

John Chard

Operation Grendel Age of Heroes is directed by Adrian Vitoria and Vitoria also co- writes the screenplay with Ed Scates. It stars Sean Bean, Danny Dyer, Aksel Hennie, Izabella Miko, James D'Arcy, William Houston, John Dagleish and Stephen Walters. Music is by Michael Richard Plowman and cinematography by Mark Hamilton. Pic is based on the real life exploits of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. This telling sees a unit of Commandos sent on a mission to the mountains of Norway to knock out an important German communication tower whilst purloining information to aid the war effort. In truth it doesn't add a great deal to an already over stocked "men on a mission" sub-genre of war films, but there's enough excitement, explosions, potent character dynamics and military shenanigans, to keep things at the better end of a viewing experience. Cast are fine, all portraying familiar types seen in countless films of this ilk, the snowy Norwegian locations are a sight for sore eyes, and Vitoria does a nice job of giving his film an old fashioned feel - complete with the obligatory Nazi atrocity to add some venomous oomph to the plotting. The inclusion of Izabella Miko on the mission sadly comes off as a token female shoehorn job, and I agree with what other reviewers have said as regards the finale, it does feel a bit rushed as this pic definitely could have done with another 15 minutes or so. Yet being an old fashioned guy myself, I liked it well enough and was glad to have viewed it. 7/10

A simple but fairly okay World War 2 movie. The blurb about the film talks about “true story” but as usual it is more “based on” stuff. They apparently did not have much of a budget when doing this movie and I am fairly surprised that Sean Bean is in it. It is a quite simple and straightforward movie and could easily have been a TV-movie rather than a theatre feature. I probably would have been more harsh in my review if I would have made the effort to go to a theatre to watch it. It is however, a fairly okay movie. It wont win any prizes for special effects but it has decent acting and a story that is not too bad. Sean Bean is good as usual but I do not think he gets the chance to shine like he does in some movies. The ending feels a bit rushed though. Like we-ran-out-of-money-lets-wrap-it-up. It still made for a okay movie watching evening though.