AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

swanningaround As a combat veteran, I can tell you that this movie is one hundred percent authentic. The action is certainly more realistic than modern day movies like Saving Private Ryan, which was full of gimmicks. In Force of Arms, nothing much is happening most of the time, then all hell breaks loose and your pals mostly die. You do not see the enemy most of the time and when you do, they appear for a split second as a target. It seems that the closer a film is to the actual events, the more realistic it is. This film was made only 7 years after the event. Saving Private Ryan was made some 60 years after WW2, which is too big a gap. The acting by Nancy Olsen and William Holden is superb. The film also depicts Clark's triumphal entry into Rome. Clark was probably the best general of WW2. He brilliantly bypassed the places where the Germans were anticipating an attack and bravely went straight through to save Rome. He was given the title of American Caesar.

moonspinner55 A ludicrous war picture from Warner Bros., an uncredited rewrite of Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" set in Italy during WWII. Stationed near Napoli, American army sergeant William Holden takes a midnight walk through the cemetery and bumps into female lieutenant Nancy Olson; he tries picking her up but she, a wholesome farmer's daughter and former teacher, sternly rebuffs him. The next day, after the sergeant has been promoted to lieutenant himself, the two go out for drinks and she talks seriously how war has made 'love' into a dirty word, but Holden is too busy smelling her hair and noticing how her eyes light up to give a response (due to the gummy cinematography, Olson never lights up). She's been hurt by true love before--hence her appearance in the cemetery--so we wait while Holden thaws her out...slowly. Tersely-written screenplay by Orin Jannings leaves no foxhole cliché unturned! This was the third teaming of Holden with Olson--they should have quit while they were ahead. *1/2 from ****

edumacated this film was written about, but not about wwII. the location of the ridges of italy was no accident. it was picked to more replicate the terrain of the war being fought at the time of filming--and that was the almost brand new, ugly war in Korea.so what we have is a prior war standing in for an all too real non-declared war in Korea. the administration called it a police action. and this one was treated as a fart in a tea bag. despite how warlike it felt to the men who were fighting it.so instead of the us making korean war films, during what they called a conflict, they made wwII films--what a rip-off. no wonder the korean vets call this the forgotten war.all you can say is: anything that comes out of hollywoods mandated ignorance of non-reality has to be crap.the true reality being: you can't make a decent war movie without several years passing after the conflict--especially when the war you're filming is not the one you're filming.

dinky-4 Some have called this an updated version of "A Farewell to Arms," but if the time has been moved forward from World War I Italy to World War II Italy, the quality has also been moved down from "memorable" to "routine." There's really nothing much wrong with this production but there's little to distinguish it, either, and one sometimes gets the uncomfortable feeling that the death and destruction of the greatest war in human history is simply being used as the background for yet another boy-meets-girl story.William Holden has a shower scene which shows he was still, at this point in his career, in his "hairy-chested" mode. Just a few years later, beginning with "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing," he entered his "shaved chest" period.Dick Wesson supplies some "comic relief" which is just as grating as his work in "Destination Moon."