This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The Yom Kippur war almost caught Israel unawares. Twenty days later they were across the Suez 100km from Cairo and near as many from Damascus, another disaster for the Arabs. In a strange turn of events however, the surprise attack and doom-laden buildup to it, with thousands of graves dug in anticipation, had a devastating effect on the country, in effect signaling a perpetual state of fear and alert.I am in the middle of exploring through films these bumps in the national mind, which brought me here. For what it's worth, the filmmaker has decided to capture an experience of war as purely about what it means to be there as he can. He knows, he was there.Sadly, it's flat beyond belief. For better or worse I found it to be nothing like Thin Red Line, as others have mentioned in their comments. Whereas Malick spins war to be one of conflicting urges in the soul, this is what we see, two hours of med- evacs carrying the wounded.There's one contemplative image in the film, a helo shot of a muddy battlefield with maneuvering tanks drawing meaningless patterns on the mud, contrasted with the early shot of the lush mingling of painted sex evocative of life, color, imagination, spontaneity. It's a great shot, and perfectly describes both what the film wants to portray, a sort of aimless cosmos, and what it ends up with—aimless doodling on the ground.So the filmmaker reminisces in film about a time and place that allowed no skyward gaze. The important message is that war is as wasteful and pointless to happen in real life as it is to watch in this film.

As others have written, "Kippur" is about two IDF soldiers of the 1973 Yom Kippur war who can't find their unit and join up with helicopter medevac group. Thus we do not see the war, but what happens minutes or hours after the lead stops flying. I think "Kippur" is closer to reality than most war pictures because the men say little, we don't know much about them (except for the doctor), and boredom is rule. The director spends five excruciating minutes showing us how the men extricate a wounded and unconscious soldier from a huge mudhole; they keep dropping him, and have to pick him up without a stretcher and drag him to a dry spot. We never see the enemy, and there is but one scene of action in the entire film (and I can't give it away.) "Kippur" is definitly for the war film afficionado who wishes to see the aftermath or the peacenik who knows the futility of armed conflict, and wants to see two hours of it.

I did not like this movie very much. Maybe because I was so disappointed. I really looked forward to se a film from a great Israeli director, and a movie about a conflict that I have never seen on film before. Sadly, this movie did not deliver any of the tension, horror and emotional intensity that great war movies do. It did not tell an interesting story and it lacked interesting characters and dialogues. It did have one interesting sex scene, with a lot of paint, though.One thing that struck me was, that despite this is a movie about a war, it only comprehended a few seconds of actual warfare. Most of the time there was endless dragging scenes that only contained waiting, silence or walking around on a muddy field. Actually, there was not much of a plot at all.This movie is said to be a realistic war movie. Well, I imagine it is realistic in a way, because i believe it's like this war looks like, for the average soldier, in an average war: most of the time nothing happens but waiting and waiting. And when things do happen, it's probably very bad and lasts for a very brief moment.If you want to see a slow but realistic and terrifying war movie, with more "psychological" than pyrotechnical action; go and see "Das Boot". "Das Boot" is a very intense and touching movie with great acting, and compared to this, "Kippur" is nothing.But despite the many bad things, this film has some interesting and unusual features. The opening sequence for instance. It´s very beautiful. The movie also gives us a sence of the confusion and anxiety that hit the Israeli people in the opening days of the war, as a result of a carefully planned and executed surprise attack. One other thing is, that it gives some brief examples of the Israeli tanks, like the British built Centurion, and tank tactics used in the Yom Kippur war. Actually, I get a feeling that the film is probably very accurate altogether, when it comes down to details. However, the film never gives away that in reality, the fighting that took place in the Golan area featured one of the largest and most furious tank battles ever. This movie is far from fierce or furious.Another interesting, but in some aspects unfortunate, feature, is that we are not allowed to see any Syrian soldiers or vehicles at all. In fact, the only enemies that are present, are the confusion, disorder, low moral and lack of information and command within parts of the Israeli army. And the occasional stray bullet (or missile)of course. This storyteller "trick" can be very effective, like in Das Boot (of course), "Blair witch ..." or "Alien", for instance. You never actually se the danger (or almost never), but you know it is there all the time. This can be very effective and thrilling, but unfortunately it's not the result in this movie.My advise to you is - don't waste time or money on this movie. If you want to see a great war movie; go and see Das Boot, Apocalypse now or The thin red line. And if you are only interested in Israeli tanks, you should probably watch Discovery instead.

"Kippur" throws you into the stark reality of war without a morality lesson or the feeling of vindication of films such as "Saving Private Ryan". And it does so with almost beautiful horror. There is no comment, no explanation, and you never see the enemy; tanks dance across the muddy, barren landscape accentuating the terrible meaningless loss of life. The detachment between the characters during the long day on the front evacuating the wounded clashes with the warmth shown even between strangers off the battlefield. This movie is very powerful due to its unedited and unabridged style. A must see.