2 / 10
score
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The Disc

Extra Features


When the disc begins come you have the rather patronising, though preferable to the anti-piracy warning, animation thanking you for purchasing the disc which is followed by trailers for Lebanon, Attack on Leningrad and City of War. Fortunately, these are skippable so you can choose to watch them or just press skipped several times.

The disc only has one extra feature: Making of (10:15) is a typical EPK piece, comprising interviews with the principle members of the cast and crew who are all extremely complementary about each other and the film shoot itself.

The Picture


Generally, the anamorphic 1.85:1 picture has very good contrast and colours and appears to have been shot digitally, something which Boll likes to do as it allows him to watch the takes very quickly and not worry about using film stock. The colours are generally very muted which makes the red swastika flags and armbands really stand out.

As a boxing biopic, the fight scenes are intrinsic to the narrative and they are incredibly well staged, with Uwe Boll saying they used over 10,000 extras and the arenas generally look packed to the rafters. As I mentioned above, it is unfortunate that the two boxers are played by real boxers as they don't look like they are throwing their punches with full force and tend to 'paw' with jabs rather than ramming them home and the power shots are delivered lightly and without much force, almost like in a light sparring session.

Inline Image

The Sound


You have the choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 surround or 2.0 stereo and I watched most of the film with the surround option, sampling the stereo every so often. Both do a good job with the dialogue but, when it comes to the fight and combat scenes, the surround track has the edge as the rear surrounds are used well so you can hear the audience behind you or the sound of explosions or aeroplanes.

The score, by frequent Boll collaborator Jessica de Rooij, is far from brilliant as it can be loud when it needs to be quiet and a little too heavy-handed when it comes to the emotional scenes.

Generally, the burnt in English subtitles are clear, easy to read and free from spelling or grammatical errors but there are a few occasions when it puts 'He' in a sentence rather than 'he', as if referring to a deity!

Inline Image

Final Thoughts


As boxing biopics go, this tells you very little about its subject – the raison d'ętre of a biopic so all you really learn from the film is Max Schmeling was a boxer who won the world heavyweight championship, lost it, boxed on and then joined the Luftwaffe and was injured in 1943. Before the end credits, there are a series of intertitles giving you information on Schmeling, Jacobs, Ondra, Machon and von Tschammer und Osten, to compensate for information left out of the film. Although it runs at 118 minutes (PAL), it isn't overly comprehensive in the information it divulges yet feels a lot longer than two hours.

It is a pretty poor film that fails to engage on any emotional level and is so badly constructed and acted that I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, including boxing fans.

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