Age of Heroes (2011)

Directed by: Adrian Vitoria | 90 minutes | action, adventure, thriller, war | Actors: Sean Bean, Danny Dyer, Aksel Hennie, Izabella Miko, James D’Arcy, William Houston, John Dagleish, Stephen Walters, Guy Burnet, Ewan Ross, Eric Madsen, Lee Jerrum, Rosie Fellner, Tony Hood, Jay Simpson, Theo Barklem-Biggs, Timothy Watson, Lin Blakley, Christiaan Haig, Daniel Brocklebank, Sebastian Street, Tom Lawrence, Vegar Hoel

‘Age of Heroes’ is an average war film with a disjointed plot about a British commando unit who must steal air defense plans in 1940s Nazi Germany occupied Norway. It’s a typical “men-on-a-mission” movie, full of clichés and a very long run-up to the actual action. That the film fits right into the template we already have from countless other war films is remarkable in itself: ‘Age of Heroes’ is based on true events and it was the first command team to be put together by a Naval Intelligence officer, named Ian Fleming. In the film he is played by James D’Arcy, who manages to get away with only a handful of scenes in which he is mainly allowed to smoke nervously and nervously wondering how his team is doing.

Fleming would of course create a furore after the war as the creator of James Bond. Fleming spent much of his later life in Jamaica, where he lived in a villa he named Goldeneye. The reason this bit of trivia is mentioned here is because that name would later be used for one of the James Bond films, namely ‘GoldenEye’ (1995), in which Sean Bean played Alec Trevelyan. In this film, Bean is the gruff but devoted Major Jack Jones, the leader of the commando unit. Jones has a lot to do with the recruit, Private Rains (Danny Dyer) – once a corporal with great abilities, now a prisoner for knocking down an officer, as evidenced by the overly long intro. Jones actually comes to pick up another member of his team, Corporal Brightling (Stephen Walters), who looks anything but a commando, by the way. Through a bold trick – which you hope has actually happened, because otherwise it would be the stupidest movie trick imaginable – Rains convinces Major Jones to join Fleming’s “30 Commando Unit”.

What follows is extensive training in Scotland, where the usual hardy types show how tough they are – without actually developing their characters. When the landing in Norway goes wrong and some members of the team are killed, you as a viewer have no idea who they were again, let alone that you deeply sympathize with the losses. That doesn’t seem like the intention. Also added to the team is an RAF sergeant, Rollright (John Dagliesh), who knows all about air defense plans. He has to find the right stuff in the German base. But, Jones secretly orders, if the mission appears to be failing, Rains must shoot poor Rollright to prevent him from falling into German hands alive. Jones, in turn, is actually an instructor and had promised his heavily pregnant wife not to do any more missions. Despite the clichés, there is still enough potential to create various fields of tension and to drag the viewer into a compelling and true adventure.

Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Director Adrian Vitoria makes a mess of it. A shame, what is hidden in the film is a lot of good stuff that simply doesn’t show up at all. The actors are convincing in their roles: Bean is always reliable and Dyer and Rains also make the best of the little space they are given. It is therefore the actors who let the film rise above itself to a mediocre level. The big shortcoming is the sloppy direction and the weak screenplay, which seems to be a cut-and-paste work from a dozen much better war films.
While the true mission should be the focus, ‘Age of Heroes’ starts much too late, making it very tight to use all facets of the mission in the remaining time of the already limited playing time (about an hour and a half). to show. Not surprisingly, that doesn’t happen.

It should be noted, however, that part of the shortcomings may be explained because the makers suffered from a limited budget. For example, the parachute jump in enemy Norway is completely skipped, so that Rains suddenly seems to wake up groggy on the ground. Furthermore, some explosions don’t look too convincing.
The action scenes are chaotic – not only because they are filmed in a ‘Band of Brothers’-like style, but mainly because there is no logic and the editing is bad. The team is chased by a group of fanatic SS men, who casually commit all kinds of war crimes, but give the commando team far too much space to prepare their attack. Meanwhile, the commando unit moves from mountain hut to mountain hut to farm, picking up their contact Beowulf in the meantime. Of course, Beowulf himself turns out not to be there and is instead a young woman (Izabella Miko) at their rendezvous spot. The storyline is also not clearly developed. The ending is predictable, but can largely be filled in by the viewer, because crucial moments – which would have given the film more impact – are left out. Strange decision, which makes the lock quite rushed.

All in all, ‘Age of Heroes’ is a film with good building blocks, which you almost desperately try to like, but which disappoints on almost every level.