While I can see that the movie had in general some good actors and the dialogue was also all decent, the movie had really bad casting for the German soldiers, which actually would have made everything more believable. When telling a true story you need to have everything in it as real as possible. The English actors as German soldiers spoke such broken German, the first thing I thought was, WHY, why save money on that. Would you believe a story when the GI's were Asian looking? Would you believe if they had a Russian accent? No, you would not believe that they were really American soldiers. For that alone, I subtracted 5 stars, simply because it made the movie cheap looking. You can't tell a true story with fake facts.

For those who are looking for flaws in this movie, they are going to find them. However, considering the budget the film makers had to work with, I think they exceeded expectations. What carries this film is the story and the storytelling. Of course, it's a bonus to have Cromwell and son in two critical roles in the film, but even their combined skills can't make a bad story good. Fortunately, with this film, they have a very good story which they turn into something special. As for the rest of the cast, some of the performances are sub-par, but I would not use a broad-brush with that criticism.As has been said, this is not a "war movie". It's also not a film about remembering our WWII veterans, though that will hopefully be one effect of it. This film is trying to help us understand our war veterans. Why did grandpa not want to talk about WWII? Why doesn't dad want to talk about what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan? The answer isn't as obvious or as simple as we may think.I've watched Memorial Day at least 3 times and each time I've come away with something new to think about.

I decided to watch this movie because I'm a war movie buff, used to seeing fantastic special effects, latest technology, etc. This movie turned out to be a pleasant surprise - a good war flick but a better human interest story. I've long regarded James Cromwell as an excellent actor, always giving good performances in any role he's cast. I've always been leery of his views, regarding them as very liberal & anti-establishment. After watching this movie, I'm rethinking my view. This movie was about a slice of American life where the old & new get together on common ground. James Cromwell makes this movie what I found it to be - a great emotional interplay between father & son well interspersed with good action sequences. This movie now rates as one of my all-time favorites!

First and foremost let me preface this review by saying I love independent films and war films. This film has four main actors, and they all did a marvelous job making their characters extremely believable and real. But, what makes this movie unmistakably good is that it makes you feel. There is no way you can not watch this movie and not feel for the grandfathers condition, or the trials and tribulations that that Kyle Vogel, and Bud Vogel. But, maybe most importantly this film forces us to look at what war is. This film shows that regardless of how much war has changed, in many ways it has not changed. There is still death, loss, and moral struggles. That at some point we all must come to terms with. This is a movie that I would recommend with flying colors, but I am skeptical of this movies re-watch value because once the moral issues have been lay-ed out there is not much else to this movie.