Falling firmly into the good guys v bad guys war film genre is The Last Front where right from the start as a German troop march Belgium villagers through the streets their commanding Lieutenant Laurentz (Joe Anderson) loses it when a sniper fires at his troops and he orders them to execute all their prisoners. Laurentz is the Nazi bastard who audiences will root for an appropriately nasty demise to befall him.
Set in 1914 German occupied Belgium his counterpart will be a widowed farmer Leonard Lambert (Iain Glen) who tends his land along with his daughter Johanna (Emma Dupont) and his son Adrien (James Downie) whose girlfriend and intended wife to be is Louise (Sasha Luss). There’s a class war going on here too as Louise’s father, a doctor, is none too keen on his daughter marrying a lowly farmer’s son who he treats with the sort of disdain normally dish out by GP receptionists. Added to this familial set up is Laurentz father Maximilian (Philippe Brenninkmeyer) who is also his commanding officer appalled at the trigger happy lunacy of his son drunk with power and dispatching anyone who disagrees with him like a World War One TwoTierKeir.
But when their degraded troops march on the village the villagers find themselves in a fight or flight dilemma and seems them looking to pacifist farmer Lambert for leadership especially when he suffers a trauma at the hands of Lieutenant Mad Bastard and it’s all leading to a climactic face off that could see Glen getting offered more mature men of mayhem action roles.
The Last Front is all handled with aplomb by writer-director Julien Hayet-Kerknawi despite some unnecessary and occasionally vacuous voiceovers but the action is well handled and the cast are uniformly good with new talent that’s destined to for bigger things as is Hayet-Kerknawi.
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Actor Iain Glen plus cast & director at the London premiere of ‘The Last Front’…..
Here’s The Last Front trailer ……
