Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Excellent, a Must See

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

If you are expecting a shoot 'em up western, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a film that examines the aftermath of the Civil War in somewhat brutal terms and offers a "that was then, this is now," perspective to the average, impoverished white Confederate soldier coming home from the war, this is your film. Editing could have been tighter while keeping the pensive tone. There's some elements of metaphor that should have gone just a little deeper with another draft on the script (who perishes, who survives & manner of disposal). It seems that most apt films about the South are made by foreign directors, starting with Renoir's The Southerner. The Aussie director gets a lot of things right, and for that, I will indulge some of the dialogue and pacing issues. Ethan Embry disappeared into his role, and the film is worth watching for that. Could have done without the graphic bedroom scene early on (not that I'm opposed, just that it wasn't necessary to establish the character as evil), but I'm guessing it was supposed to be a metaphor for how the wealthy barons of the South raped it even after it was no longer the Grand South? If that's the case, then the character is both baron and carpetbagger in one, which is a little odd, but we'll roll with it.

This is, quite possibly, one of the worst films I have ever seen. It's worst than Swept Away. It's ridiculous, boring, and poorly acted. This is the first movie I have ever walked out of before the end credits rolled.Kane Senes' direction for starters is very unimaginative, and the camera work and editing don't have any real charm to them. The writing and concept is very hackneyed. This has to be one of the most utterly horrible scripts ever conceived by mortal minds. I mean, sweet mother of mercy, what the hell was anyone thinking when they were doing this tepid rubbish? Set in rural post-war Texas, a cattle baron named McCluskey has lost all his cattle. There's a returning war vet named Wade who turns out to be the long-lost brother-in-law to local milquetoast Seamus Riley. The villainous McCluskey clan is stealing from the Riley clan. It takes an inordinate amount of trite and tedious scenes for this conflict to come to a head — nearly 90 minutes of Seamus scraping a razor across his scalp, rugs being cleaned, and tedious dinner scenes. Do yourself an enormous favor and skip this detritus.

Peter Sobczynski of rogerebert.com said this about Echoes of War:"Despite my best efforts, I could not see Echoes of War as anything more than a giant bore.""Co-writers John Chriss and Kane Senes have provided a screenplay that consists of dialogue that strains for poetry at every turn and misses every time, and characters who always feel like plot devices instead of actual people.""Senes serves double duty as director, and, as uninvolving as the screenplay he gave himself is, he does it no favor with a pace so sluggish that the film feels maybe three times longer than it actually is.""The actors have been given neither compelling characters to play nor plausible dialogue, they more or less look exactly like what they are—a bunch of actors stuck in uncomfortable outfits uttering largely unspeakable dialogue.""James Badge Dale is normally a good actor but his character is so one-dimensional and uninteresting that he is unable to get anything going with it.""William Forsythe is one of those B-movie presences who can usually liven up even the most substandard of material but he is also stymied by a character built of so many clichés that he was probably off-book halfway through the first table read.""Anyone going to this film to see Maika Monroe will be especially disappointed."

If you see one film this year, make sure it's NOT this one...unless you're in need of some shut-eye. In fact, if you see dozens of films this year, your time would best be spent doing anything else than watching this dreadful piece of garbage. Holy crap, the fellas who made this are clueless when it comes to storytelling. Dull and excruciatingly slow doesn't even begin to describe this regurgitated Hatfield & McCoy-type story. There's no tension or real drama, the plot is as bland as unseasoned potatoes, the acting is nothing to write home about, the music is downright annoying, the photography is, well...meh, The whole stinking thing is plain awful. As a matter of fact, to call this awful is actually an insult to awful films.Rating this 2 stars out of 10.