It operates within the strictures imposed on a television movie -- not many expensive special effects, no bankable stars, and an overall pallid washed-out quality in the photography. And it doesn't entirely avoid the familiar. One man must read aloud from a bloody bible while the listener dies a Hollywood death. And there is one of those conversations about "why we are here." Occasionally, too, it succumbs to the wobbling camera disease that infected so many productions of the time. There is a weak scene in which a German officer interrogates an American captive. The captive smirks throughout and answers sarcastically. It's not believable. But only ONE slow motion death, and thank heavens for small favors.As Major Charles Whittlesey, commanding a battalion that penetrates the Argonne Forest only to find itself cut off from it own lines, taking massive casualties, running out of essential supplies, Ricky Schroeder has lost his boyish appeal and now, with a pair of spectacles, resembles a real man, something on the order of Jon Voight, only with a less resonant voice. I worked on two TV movies with Schroeder and he's a genuinely nice guy, willing to sit down and chat with humble extras. He should have gone on to decent character roles.But the most striking feature of the film is its outright candor. True, the American troops are portrayed as brave heroes -- but that's what they WERE. Their triumphs were probably helped by the fact that the war would end shortly and many of the German troops had lost their enthusiasm for battle. But when friendly artillery fire rains down on Whittlesey's men -- as it did -- the error is made explicit on screen.And due attention is paid to period detail. No reason to get into it but the rifles are Springfield '03s and some property man actually managed to dig up a disastrous French machine gun called the Chauchat. The pistols used by the Yanks are mostly correct but I doubt anybody ever hit much with them. The Luxembourg locations are properly convincing.Whittlesbey's 77th Division is also historically correct, and so is its character, since most of its men were recruited from the streets of New York. (In the next war the 77th fought in the Pacific and wound up on Okinawa.) Some fun is made of ethnicity and region but it's incorporated into the usual Army banter without which no movie would be complete. A Manhattan Jew trades barbs with an Italian from Brooklyn over which borough has the best food. The names of the principals are real too. It would have been easy to fictionalize much of this and turn it into a talky and mindless feature with flashbacks to the family and girls back home, but the producers decided to handle the story differently. Good for them.

I will not comment on the facts or omissions or what actually happened versus what was portrayed. My comment is on the direction of the movie. The director appears to have learned his tricks of trade through reruns of "saving private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers". Where the camera work on those productions is superb and groundbreaking through the use of the first person perspective and excellent angles, in this production it feels contrite and jittery at best and gimmicky at worst. Wardrobe - obviously - took great pains to recreate the uniforms and equipment to great accuracy but the special effects department let down the whole visual experience with the acrobatic tumbles of the soldiers and the thriller style stunt work. The Ardenne shelling in "Band of Brothers" was nerve shattering and brought the terrible ordeal of the soldiers to the viewer in a way that is memorable. The attempt to recreate that effect here completely misses the mark.I'm afraid that the overall experience has not been pleasant and I kept wishing the director would stop trying to impress us and just tell the story.

I usually read reviews before I watch a movie. Guess what, I didn't do that before watching TLB, and I have to say I was very surprised to see the above average rating at IMDb. I found it to have a total lack of story. You just get dropped into it (and, sadly, not in the way Saving Private Ryan dropped us into the movie), and it also has a sudden end, which was very unsatisfying for me.I have to admit, the wounded soldiers looked pretty realistic to me, especially with the low budget in mind. But prepare yourself to have a laugh... Some guys are being tossed through the air after an explosion as if they are Olympic gymnasts. A mid-air corkscrew or somersault during WW I is a bit too much for me, especially when it's performed countless times during the movie...But the parts that really got me laughing until I almost cried were the scenes containing close combat. The screaming and shouting German voices...unbelievably funny. It seems as if they are spoken by one single actor / voice performer, because they all sound exactly the same, and it just sounds like a 'typical' German voice.I would absolutely NOT recommend this movie to anyone, except to people who just want to have some laughs because of the sad and corny quality of it.

If you can get past the melting-pot platoon clichés, there's a pretty decent movie here. The Lost Battalion tells the story of a unit of American GIs who advance well beyond their support into German-held territory in October, 1918. TLB mixes some Paths of Glory with Saving Private Ryan, but manages to extol the virtues of polyglot GIs in a supremely difficult position: Will they hold together while taking fire from superior forces in the front and callous commanders in the rear?At 90 minutes, the movie is over almost before you really get into it. The narrative spans about six days in the life of 600 men--reduced to barely 200 by the end of the engagement--who act as a "thorn in the side" of a larger, Prussian-led force in the Argonne Forest. They're abandoned by their generals as they make the mistake of advancing to where they're supposed to go, and then having the bad taste not to flee when their support bugs out on both flanks. The movie's strength is how it portrays its clichés--Hey, these aren't clichés about class distinction and combat--this stuff was real! It's a much more watered down type of combat than you would find on the big screen, but the blood and guts--and there's a lot spilled here--doesn't get in the way of watching blue bloods find out what "Italian, Irish, Jew, and Pollack gangsters" can do when they're led well by field-grade officers, and are being taunted and insulted by Prussians and their aristocratic mind-set.Congratulations to the filmmakers! Look for The Lost Battalion on the History Channel or A&E. Watch this and feel proud for more than our men in arms. Feel proud for our society at its best.