Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Well, colour me shocked. A low budget film, set mostly on the battlefield of WW1 in France after and during a major conflict turns out to be not half bad. The opening sequence, which features the infamous battle charge so favoured by overstuffed generals who did nothing more brave than sip tea behind the lines, leads to all the soldiers mown down by German machine guns... save for three. Lions, led by donkeys indeed.One is a born leader, another young and impetuous, the final survivor has lost a leg. If they ditched him, it would be much easier to escape the trenches under surveillance by an enemy desperate to wipe them all out... but of course, the idea of abandoning one of their 'band of brothers' is out the question. If only we could all be so noble...Running parallel to this, is the head of the trio's wife back in England finding out she's pregnant by another man. Plagued by bad dreams about what he may do to her when he finds out, she opts for a back street abortion... With predictable consequences. The way these events factor into the finale is ironic to say the least, but it does provide for a powerful ending.It efficiently captures the claustrophobia that the men must have felt in those terrible conditions, and the distinct characterisations of our three leads held my attention, even when there was not much else going on. The effects, from mortar explosions to mustard gas, pass scrutiny too. For the money it must have cost to make, with a no-name cast, Jolly Good Show All Round I'd say, chappies. 6/10

I watched Forbidden Ground recently and can't recommend this film highly enough. It was emotive and gripping and had me on the edge of my seat the whole way through.My only gripe is that this film is marketed as a massive war action film, and while there are numerous battle scenes and action sequences, I would call this film a drama/thriller made in a war setting.If you're a military extremist who must have every technical detail 100% accurate in order to enjoy a film set in war, this might not be the film for you. I found the attention to detail was great, sure it has errors and faults, which war film doesn't? I'm no war historian but when you consider the budget for which this was made (reportedly like under half a million) my hat tips to the filmmakers regardless of any perceived military technical errors.The way their lives and connecting tales were interwoven was fantastic, and done in a way you rarely find in film these days. Performances were great and I was totally immersed in their world.I and my entire family loved this film. If you enjoy film and love watching films that move you, then I highly recommend Forbidden Ground.

Forbidden Ground is an Australian-made rendition of the plight of British soldiers trapped in no-man's land, and should have been the war epic it was (once) anticipated to be. The unfortunate truth is that it falls short of all expectations, and as a patriotic Australian I take no pleasure in saying it. From the first moments the small budget is apparent. Close-ups try and disguise the limited scale of the production. The battles in the film are all no more than small skirmishes and never really produced with any flair, impact, or suspense. The constant reliance on CGI for special effects cripples the action, unlike it's predecessor Beneath Hill 60 - which it will surely be compared to - which used mostly practical visual effects and captures gritty violence effectively. As such, when the horror of trench warfare comes along in this film, it is woefully un- engaging, and downright boring in parts. I felt no connection with the men going to their deaths. The obvious computer-generated explosions and squibs left a lot to be desired and had no "punch." It's an anti-war film, as most WWI films are, so you would expect a focus on correctly portraying the shocking waste of war, but Forbidden Ground lacks the budget or know-how to do it properly. There are some tired clichés including snobby, arrogant officers and the hard-nosed NCO, and while historically accurate in some ways, Forbidden Ground doesn't cast the roles with conviction, simply recycling scenes and minor characters from a dozen better war films. The other problem with authenticity is that most of the cast is Australian, and while our accents may be more or less similar and we often are mistaken for Poms, the actors on show here can't quite make it sound natural and every line feels laborious and forced. If they'd just spoken with their normal accents they would probably have sounded more comfortable with their characters, but alas every Pommy soldier on screen sounds like a caricature of British stereotypes. Another problem with authenticity is that the unit that is focused on seems to be an amalgamation of British accents. Whether intentional or by accident, units were formed from specific locales (universities, rugby clubs, towns, cities, etc) and would only occasionally be mixed with troops from broadly different locations (casualty replacements). So the end result is a disappointing straight-to-DVD war drama without any magnetism or flair. I praise the cast and crew for doing what they could to commemorate the war, but I can't recommend Forbidden Ground as good viewing. Better luck next time.

Ugly Germans, cute Brits, and a female abortion is equal to trench warfare. Self-righteous, moralizing garbage. There is no place for subtleness, complexity when all is black and white in a fanatic's mind. The worst thing here about abortion: it cuts down the number of eligible conscripts.I write this revue in a wane hope that it just might slow down "the march of Christian Soldiers" towards the next world war.Here's a suggestion: on par with an "Oscar" let's have a "Golden Goebbels" award for justifying war, making it acceptable, palatable and selling it all to minors as an exciting way to do "the wright thing". Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and "War Horse" come to mind. We all know that "war is a racket" and this film it's newest addition.