Walking with the Enemy 2014

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: After 20 shaky opening minutes, first-time director Mark Schmidt finds his footing with this slightly overlong English-language Holocaust drama. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Its impact is special and inescapable. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: A little-known tale of Jewish resistance during the final days of WWII gets tackled with appreciable ambition and blunt, sporadic emotional force in "Walking With the Enemy." Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: It does reduce a period of irredeemable horror to the heroics of a single person. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The title "Walking With the Enemy" suggests a peculiar lack of urgency, so it's a disappointingly accurate handle indeed. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The film is as dramatically inert as its origins are inspirational. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: Sometimes awkward and melodramatic, the debut film from director Mark Schmidt nevertheless derives strength from its little-known true-life story of Holocaust heroism. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Motivated by an earnest need to inspire, Schmidt's debut suffers from stiffness but improves as it goes, the tension of its plot overcoming many dramatic failings. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: A determined historical sweep masks a small-minded bid for easy outrage and heartstrings-pulling in the schematic World War II drama "Walking With the Enemy." Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: The film is so emotionally obvious and awkwardly handled that it doesn't deserve much consideration as a political or historical statement ... Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: An old-school drama so sincere, yet so ham-fisted, it borders on parody. Read more

Miriam Bale, New York Daily News: Unfortunately, the nuances of these intense scenarios are lost in favor of action beats and a bombastic orchestral score. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times: Constant title cards introducing historical figures suggest the work of a completist rather than a filmmaker who has focused the material. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: A badly written, poorly acted, bathetic pageant of bad wigs and worse accents, rendered with production values on a par with NBC's recent Sound of Music mummery. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: A plodding and clunky drama that never misses an opportunity to embrace a cliche. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: This is a dark, horrible history, and yet there are times when "Walking With the Enemy" feels like "To Be Or Not to Be," only without Jack Benny, or like "Hogan's Heroes" without the jokes. Read more

Michael Nordine, Village Voice: As with many other WWII films, it takes genuinely stirring source material -- a young Hungarian man poses as a Nazi to find his dislocated family -- and reduces it to its most shopworn components. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: A simple retelling of these stories would have been more dramatic, more effective and more powerful. Read more