Passchendale

Based on a real war, and the stories of Paul Gross's grandfather, Passchendale mixes love and war into an epic story Canadians can be proud of.

Michael Dunne (Paul Gross) is on a mental leave from active duty in the army after watching most of his platoon get killed in Germany, including having to gruesomely kill a young man on the enemy side. While in the hospital after sustaining an injury in battle, World War I, Dunne is taken care of by a kind, beautiful nurse, and he becomes quite taken with her. Knowing her only as Nurse Mann, he asks her name before he is released. The rules will not allow her to tell him, but as he is leaving, another nurse informs that her name is Sarah (Caroline Dhavernas). With the intentions of looking her up, Dunne leaves and reports to duty as an induction officer for new recruits.

As fate would have it, David Mann (Joe Dinicol) Sarah's brother, tries to sign up for the army to impress his girlfriend's father. Unfortunately, Dunne must turn him down due to a case of asthma, but he does make a point of finding out where the boy lives, so that he can call upon his sister. After a series of outings, and a game of cat and mouse, Dunne helps Sarah when her and David become endangered by neighbours, and allows her to stay with him. Dunne lives in a small apartment, and in such close quarters, people bound to get close. After a few days, Sarah gives in and agrees to date Dunne, with one rule, don't die. Unfortunately, their love is doomed when David gets a faulty medical note stating that he does not have asthma, and signs up to go to war. Feeling responsible for him, Dunne reenlists, and heads back to the place he had hoped to never go again, back to war.

It was nice to see a war from the Canadian point of view for once. While the American war movies are enjoyable, Passchandale instills a sense of pride into Canadian hearts.

Costing $20 million to make, Passchendale is the most expensive movie ever made that was funded entirely by Canada. To add to that, at least 15 of the main actors are Canadian, and it was filmed in Canada. To add to this, Passchendale was written, directed, and starred in by fellow Canadian Paul Gross.

While the movie was a little slow getting started, and mainly took place here in Canada, it made up for the beginnings lack of action in the end. The war scenes were awesome. There were bombs and gunfire constantly going in the background. The war scenes were dirty and raw, and felt very realistic. I recommend this movie to anyone who likes a war movie that takes a slower pace with a good story, and have Canadian pride.

Final Words: Saw it. Liked it. They called us Storm Troopers.