Deathwatch is set during World War 1 & starts on 'The Western Front 1917' as a group of British soldiers prepare to go over the top. During the course of the battle several soldiers are separated & become lost, as they wander the landscape they stumble across a forward German trench that they capture, taking one German soldier (Roman Horak) as a prisoner. Captain Bramwell Jennings (Laurence Fox) orders his troops to bed themselves in as they are going to defend the valuable trench until reinforcements arrive. The trench is a god-awful place, it's strewn with dead mutilated bodies, it's filthy & it's generally not a nice place to be. That night Private Barry Starinski (Kris Marshall) is heard screaming, the men find his body wrapped in barbed wire. Private Bradford (Hugh O'Conor) reaches help over the radio but as time passes & the reinforcements don't arrive bouts of squabbling, fighting & arguing break out amongst the men. Paranoia & desperation sets in as they're number begins to dwindle, upon questioning the German soldier he says that they will all die & great evil fills the trench...
This British, German, Italian & French co-production was written & directed by Michael J. Bassett & in my opinion is, to be blunt, crap. The script is mind-numbingly slow, dull & boring. To say Deathwatch concentrates on character development rather than action is an understatement. If it's one thing I can't stand it's a boring film, I have better things to do than sit in front of a TV screen watching deeply uninteresting character's have petty arguments amongst themselves (I get enough of that at work!). I sat there waiting for something to happen, anything in fact & unfortunately my patience was never fully rewarded. Deathwatch tries to be clever & keep things a mystery until a lame twist ending but I found the vagueness of it all a real turn-off as it just didn't grip or engage me in the slightest & I quickly lost interest in what was happening. It tries to say things about life in the trenches, paranoia, weak command, racism & other such things which bored me senseless & isn't what I'm looking for in a (supposed) horror film. Deathwatch is extremely similar to The Bunker (2001) made around the same time.
Deathwatch was Bassett's directorial debut & in the four years since he hasn't made another film which comes as no great surprise. I have to say the atmosphere was great & both the script & ideas behind it had potential but stuck in such a leaden paced film they are ineffectual to say the least. One more thing that irritated me, I don't know if it was just me but I found it quite hard to distinguish between character's as once they start to get covered in mud they all look exactly the same & Bassett films everything with in a drab, unexciting grayish almost colourless tone. Forget about any meaningful amounts of gore gore, someone gets wrapped in barb wire, a few bullet wounds & a cool bit where a injured soldier who has no feeling in his legs has the bed-sheet removed to discover rats eating them...
Technically the film is decent enough with nice authentic looking trenches that give the film a realistic & claustrophobic feel throughout. The costumes, special effects, cinematography & general production values are all fine. The acting was pretty good.
Deathwatch was a big disappointment for me, I just found the whole thing a bit of a boring confused mess that had zero entertainment value as far as I'm concerned. I wish I'd had an early night now instead.
This British, German, Italian & French co-production was written & directed by Michael J. Bassett & in my opinion is, to be blunt, crap. The script is mind-numbingly slow, dull & boring. To say Deathwatch concentrates on character development rather than action is an understatement. If it's one thing I can't stand it's a boring film, I have better things to do than sit in front of a TV screen watching deeply uninteresting character's have petty arguments amongst themselves (I get enough of that at work!). I sat there waiting for something to happen, anything in fact & unfortunately my patience was never fully rewarded. Deathwatch tries to be clever & keep things a mystery until a lame twist ending but I found the vagueness of it all a real turn-off as it just didn't grip or engage me in the slightest & I quickly lost interest in what was happening. It tries to say things about life in the trenches, paranoia, weak command, racism & other such things which bored me senseless & isn't what I'm looking for in a (supposed) horror film. Deathwatch is extremely similar to The Bunker (2001) made around the same time.
Deathwatch was Bassett's directorial debut & in the four years since he hasn't made another film which comes as no great surprise. I have to say the atmosphere was great & both the script & ideas behind it had potential but stuck in such a leaden paced film they are ineffectual to say the least. One more thing that irritated me, I don't know if it was just me but I found it quite hard to distinguish between character's as once they start to get covered in mud they all look exactly the same & Bassett films everything with in a drab, unexciting grayish almost colourless tone. Forget about any meaningful amounts of gore gore, someone gets wrapped in barb wire, a few bullet wounds & a cool bit where a injured soldier who has no feeling in his legs has the bed-sheet removed to discover rats eating them...
Technically the film is decent enough with nice authentic looking trenches that give the film a realistic & claustrophobic feel throughout. The costumes, special effects, cinematography & general production values are all fine. The acting was pretty good.
Deathwatch was a big disappointment for me, I just found the whole thing a bit of a boring confused mess that had zero entertainment value as far as I'm concerned. I wish I'd had an early night now instead.