It’s the evening of June 5, 1944, when a small battalion of American soldiers hurtle out of a fiery cargo plane over the Normandy coast. It’s an explosive opening sequence that introduces both “Overlord” and the vision of its director, Julius Avery, with quite the bang. These killer first five minutes signal we’re in for a wild ride with this dark, intense and bloody take on a World War II flick. If anyone ever wished “Saving Private Ryan” were more of a B-movie splatterfest, “Overlord” is the movie for you.
We’re taken on the journey through the eyes of a nervous newbie private named Boyce (Jovan Adepo), who is all wide eyes and empathy and wouldn’t even kill a mouse. He’s surrounded by your standard-issue WWII movie types. There’s Ford (Wyatt Russell, never better), a grizzled, scarred explosives expert who’s seen some things. There’s the fast-talking Tibbet (John Magaro), whose bark is worse than his bite, and swaggering Sgt. Rensin (Bokeem Woodbine), who informs the boys of their mission to take out a Nazi radio jammer on a tower so planes can guide American ships to victory on D-Day.
Only a few make it through the crash landing, and soon, the GIs have taken over the home of a headstrong young French woman, Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier), who is harboring her brother Paul (Gianny Taufer) and sick aunt while enduing the affections of Nazi commander Wafner (Pilou Asbaek). Although the mission is to take down the tower, it soon becomes clear there’s far more horror going on behind the walls of the Nazi command center, and our moral compass, Boyce, demands something be done about it.
