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Bad morale 2010-06-05

Reviewer: Kilroy

This film did not favorably portray the IDF. The soldiers had terrible morale and ineffective/cowardly leaders. Bad acting, bad script, bad, hmm, well bad everything.

People see what they want to see 2010-04-23

Reviewer: William E. Warner

War is not about the grandiose sweeping event that the average persons read in historical account or see on the cable news. War is about the small groups of individuals living their daily lives while event s beyond their control affect them. This is the story of the Beufort, a 12th century Crusader stronghold used as the anchor of the Israeli defense of southern Lebanon for 18 years.
Some of the reviewer may be indeed correct that there are geopolitical events that are not portrayed in the film and there may be truth to the idea that the soldiers stationed at the Beufort because of the aggression of the enemy. But, that is not what this movie is about.
This movie is about the small combat unit under daily enemy fire. Frustrated, like all soldiers that they cannot go an attack and they cannot pull back. What is worse, is after they get an order to abandon the Beufort and destroy it, thus making them feel it was all for nothing.
The movie is about the soldiers as they face the abandonment of their mission with out resolution and closure. You can feel the pain the commander feel as his men are killed by the faceless artillery shells with out being able to do anything but hide in the bunkers. You feel his gloom s he is told to abandon his position without doing anything heroic or soldier like.
To all those that think the movie forgot the heroes of the war, I would like them to remember that war especially guerrilla or wars of attrition are not glamorous affair lead by "John Wayne" types. This movie was spectacular at what it was meant to portray. If you want unrealistic heroics go rent "Sands of Iwo Jima" and watch it over and over, then go enlist.

Brilliant 2010-04-11

Reviewer: Reader/author

One of the finest war films I've seen in many a year. Tense, moving and patiently developed. The special features are also fascinating. A little taste of a seemingly endless, frustrating, unrewarding conflict from the pov of the kids forced to sit, wait, fight and die.

Bad movie 2010-03-06

Reviewer: Jon Stevens

Most countries rever their national heroes, however, with leftist Israeli filmmakers on the other hand, they insist on making films critical of Israel, and instead of paying homage to their battle victories and the national heroes these wars produced, they focus on the worst about Israel and IDF, and Beaufort is a prime example.

Along with the anti-Israeli biased media, clever Palestinians filmmakers are now successfully destroying Israel's image, winning the hearts and minds of Americans and international audiences with films like Paradise Now which justifies suicide bombings in Israel, and the cunning Amereeka that presents the Palestinians symapthetically, while the Americans and Israelis are mostly evil, doing it with such excellence that it easily succeeds in duping and influencing Americans unfamiliar with the history of Israel/Palestine conflict to hate the Israelis victimizing the wonderful innocent saintly Palestinians (forgetting Palestinian brutal atrocities having raped, torured, murdered, and maimed 100,000 Lebanses Christian civilians during its savage civil war, and thousands of Israeli men, women, and children murdered and maimed since the 1800's).

Watching Israeli soldiers whining in (the technically well made) movie Beaufort was shocking and profoundly disturbing. When I think of Israel and IDF I think of heroic warriors, i.e., legendary Meir Har Zion who fearlessly led his Unit 101 commandos and paratroopers into combat behind enemy lines retaliating for the murder and maiming of Israeli civilians by the "Fadayeen" terrorists, and after his sister Shoshana was raped and murdered by Beduins, he went deep into Jordan, tracked those responsible and killed all with the exception of one so he could the story to others; fighter Rafael "Raful" Eytan who was woundede several times in combat, including a bullet in the head, yet rose to become the IDF Chief of Staff; the Medal of Courage winner national hero Avi Kahalani who in the 1973 October War, commanding only 72 tank battalion, outnumbered 11-1, he and his men knocked out several hundred enemy tanks, stopping the Syrian invasion on the Golan saving Northern Israel from certain destruction; Arik Sharon who was told by his paratroopers that they'll go through fire and water to fight under his command, disobayed orders, crossed the Suez Canal forcing the Egyptians to end the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and saving the lives of hundreds of Israeli soldiers; "Kushi" Rimon, Ehud Barak, Dan Shomron, Dan Yaron, Yossi Ben Hannan, Yoni Natanyahu, Benjamin Natanyahu, etc., all magnificent Israeli fighters.

In my opinion Beaufort is probably being used by the Hezbollah as part of their training, teaching their men not to fear the IDF soldeirs, who in this film are a bunch of whining Jewish ghetto cry babies, not the Israeli warriors who've defeated the Arab armies in war after war, and have been defeating Palestinian terror.

It's time the Israeli filmmakers learn how to make films from the Arabs and Palestinians sympathetic to their own people instead of making idiotic trash that hurt Israel's image like Beaufort, Lemon Tree, Syrian Bride, Waltzing With Bashir, James Journey to Jerusalem, and Lebanon, the soon to be released film about an Israeli tank crew fighting in the same unpopular 1982 Lebanon War that these Israeli leftist filmmakers love to obsess about. (These filmmakers ignore or forget that the IDF saved the Christian population of Lebanon from total extermination by the Palestinians and their Muslim allies had Israel not come to their rescue, hoping to kick out the PLO and Northern Israel from consistent terror attacks, and hopefully protect a Christian dominated gorvernment friendly to Israel. Unfortunately, pressured by the Arab controlled UN, international biased media, and Israeli leftist politicians, these goals were prevented from being accomplished, resulting in a Lebanon under the radical Islamic Hezbollah control).

Hopefully the bleak, yet humane The Band's Visit, and the powerful 2010 Oscar nominated Ajami herald a new direction for Israli cinema, but this Beaufort, even with an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Film (I wonder who the arrogant producers who though this crap was better than the much superior The Band's Visit, paid off), is a total boring loser that does not have one character you can indentify with (unless you like weakling whiners and complainers) and therefore I wouldn'd recommend this to anyone who loves or is curious about Israel and its valiant people.

Should won an Oscar 2009-07-15

Reviewer: Yuval Haimovits

Israel has a long history of Wars as you can learn from: Israel's War History. This movie will take you to some of the horrifying fighting of the Israel's wars: Lebanon War. The director has made an excellent work taking us to the claustrophobic bunker with all the sights, views and sounds from that war. Amazing acting!