Ed. note: The following review was published one year ago, before the series premiere.
HBO premieres its highly anticipated 10-part miniseries Band of Brothers on Sunday, Sept. 9, 2001, and unless you’re living in a cave or dead, you need to catch this debut. Watch not simply for the fact that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced the miniseries-watch it for the fact that, after watching the two episodes, you simply can’t believe Band of Brothers is a true story.
All too true. Unflinching.
The first episode, set in 1942, introduces us to the men of Easy Company, a group of World War II paratroopers–a new breed of soldiers at the time. Undergoing harsh training in Toccoa, Ga., the men quickly learn that their assigned officer, Lt. Sobel (played by Friends‘ David Schwimmer, with surprising ferocity), is an excessively brutal chap. However, they also learn that when the pressure’s on Sobel, he’s liable to crack.
Quickly, one of the men of Easy Company, an exceptional soldier and leader named Lt. Winters (played by the instantly likable Damian Lewis), who had recently achieved the status of junior officer, challenges the authority of Sobel and captures the loyalty of the rest of the men. Simply watching Sobel’s confidence shrink as each second goes by is maliciously entertaining.
Introductions aside, the second episode blasts onto the screen as the men of Easy Company soar toward the Normandy coast on the eve of D-day, preparing to parachute directly into hell. A pitch-black sky slowly begins to explode ahead, orange, and each man deals with the mounting tension their own way: through prayer, meditation and some sporadic motion sickness.
Normandy nears. And then the moment comes.
Words can really do no justice for what happens next. Let’s just say that this opening sequence makes the special effects in Saving Private Ryan look positively kindergarten.
The aftermath of the drop is an exercise in confusion. The soldiers who weren’t killed in the ordeal suddenly realize they were dropped in the wrong location and that many of their much-needed supplies and weapons didn’t make it down with them. Nevertheless, perseverance is essential, and the men of Easy Company join forces with soldiers from other squads to attempt to turn the tide in France’s occupied interior.
So hopelessly outnumbered, how can they? Well, you’ll have to catch the remaining eight installments to find out.
A few familiar faces comprise Easy Company. Ron Livingston (Office Space) takes a shot at drama throughout the miniseries, and does so admirably. Former New Kids on the Block member Donnie Wahlberg also contributes nicely. However, the majority of the actors in Band of Brothers are veritable unknowns. This which works to the miniseries’ advantage, as its presents us a group of soldiers who live and die for one another, yet initially appear as strangers to viewers-people we must get to know, slowly, without the preconceptions we associate with big-name celebrities.
Ben Affleck simply wouldn’t do.
Band of Brothers is produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and it shows. The same twitchy camera techniques employed in Saving Private Ryan are resurrected for the miniseries. Also, Spielberg and Hanks, seasoned storytellers, begin each episode with current interviews with some of the surviving, aged members of Easy Company, adding some invaluable exposition from a handful of men who (somehow) made it out of WWII Europe.
Damn good stuff.
