Saw OPERATION DAYBREAK yesterday, ANTHROPOID today, my thoughts:

Operation Daybreak (1975) was excellent. I was expecting a dated, tacky war film but it really told its story well. I genuinely felt tense, frightened and emotional at various points in the film. Overall, it felt like a passionate project where the makers really wanted you to know and appreciate this fascinating story. Even one of the more dated elements, the synth score, gives a haunting backbone to the story.

Anthropoid (2016) which I just finished, didn't really make me feel anything. Its not just the now-familiarity of the story, it just wasn't written or directed with anywhere near the same level of directorial skill. I found myself feeling hugely frustrated and irritated with the direction and some production choices:

- The whole thing was washed in brown, just like Suffragette (and Spectre, despite not being a period film) last year, as if an entirely brown palette somehow makes it more authentic. There wasn't a single primary colour in the whole film. This kind of over-stylisation takes away the natural feelings of the story, because it ends up feeling so forced. Its a real pain that just because this kind of digital technology is available now, film-makers run riot with it, over-cooking their films.

- The actors commit that annoying sin of looking like they're "acting" the whole time. Rather than embodying characters with dimensions, who would regularly show vulnerability and humour for example, they sit around being as moody and self-important as possible, as if they're playing Bruce Wayne in another Dark Night film, or play to the expectations of their young fans. Dornan in particular frowns pretty much throughout the entire film. Murphy constantly has a cigarette hanging from his mouth. I get it - these guys are "tense" and doing something "important" - but its just unrealistic to over-act in a one-note way through the film. It reeks of poor, under-confident direction. The characters in Operation Daybreak had a much wider and credible range of emotions, and you genuinely engage with them. Here, even the great Toby Jones acts in a really self-consciously serious way that just doesn't give him any depth or credibility of character.

- There isn't any coverage of Heydrich. In Daybreak, we see him being a bastard, making plans, understanding his side of events which then ultimately dovetails with the mission. This gives Daybreak a much greater context in wanting the guys to succeed, and understanding the magnitude of what they're up against.

- How the Lidice massacre is handled in Anthropoid is incredibly lame, being merely told second-hand in a brief way. Daybreak conveyed this event with far more impact, which I feel it deserves, as well as the Nazis finding it on a map beforehand, so you anticipate the horror and feel the suspense of whats about to happen.

- Other events in Anthropoid were given no buildup of suspense, which makes their telling far less impactful. Even little things, like in Daybreak seeing the huge machine gun getting set up to fire through the window. In Anthropoid you just hear the bullets, and then see the gun after the firing. The killing of Lenka is told after the event in brief flashes, which again feel forced and reduce the impact of her death. The invasion of the home, despite being more brutal, doesn't quite feel as frightening (I think because by this point, the film feels so phony and forced that it holds itself away at distance rather than allowing full engagement). The romances don't feel credible at all.

- Most unforgivably, the director opts for am artsy ending. Just as things are getting tense with the flooding of the crypt, as the dynamite goes off he cuts out the sound, switching to a purely piano/violin soundtrack, and then Lenka emerging from the waterfall as they commit suicide. I found this treatment really infuriating, because again rather than letting the events speak for themselves, the director has to over-force this clunky sentimentality in a manipulative way. As a viewer, it didn't accentuate my emotional reaction to the events at all - it dampened them, because its just so distractingly over-stylised. Its a shame because the shoot-out was one of the better handled aspects of the film, until that moment where it all collapsed.

OVERALL - I found Operation Daybreak to be a much more honest, straight-forward and efficiently directed telling of this fascinating and tragic story. I think its a great shame that this generation of viewers are more likely to learn of the story from Anthropoid rather than Daybreak. But, at least the story is "out there" one way or another. I would happily watch Daybreak again, but I couldn't possibly sit through Anthropoid again. Its the cinematic equivalent of a cigarette floating around in a cup of tea, and then smashing in slow-motion to emo-piano music.