‘Masterpiece’ war film as good as Saving Private Ryan now streaming on Amazon | Films | Entertainment

A “masterpiece” war film is now streaming on Amazon Prime as film fans say it is as good as Saving Private Ryan. The movie in question was released in 1977 and was directed by legendary filmmaker Paul Verhoeven. The Robocop and Basic Instinct director filmed Soldier of Orange just a few years before his string of acclaimed ’80s movies.

Soldier of Orange stars Rutger Hauer and has been hailed by film buffs as one of the finest war films ever made. The film is set in the Netherlands during WW2 and follows Hauer in what Newsweek described at the time as a “superb war epic”.

One fan of the film made an unlikely comparison between Soldier of Orange and watching a football game. The viewer shared: “I just watched Soldier of Orange, and I’m absolutely fascinated. It’s a typical war flick in many senses, but it’s probably one of the best ever made, if not THE ONE.

“My heartfelt thanks and congratulations go to the entire crew who made this masterpiece. For 156 minutes, I was a young Dutchman wanting my country to be saved from the Nazis! After some point, it was like watching a football game.

“I usually try to mention the slightest flaw in a movie when I write a comment on here, no matter how much I liked it. But this time, I won’t be able to, because this movie simply has no flaw at all.”

Another viewer called it a fascinating adaptation of true events. They wrote: “This is an excellent adaptation of a true story of university students reacting to World War II. The population of Holland lived a naive existence, believing that they were not involved.

“When the war came to them, they were horribly naive and unprepared. The only possibility was to work with the resistance. By the war’s end, only two of the original group (Erik and Jack) were still alive.

“The whole story is there: danger, how people were forced into collaborating, how others willingly collaborated, torture at the hands of the Gestapo, death the penalty for getting caught, how Erik survived.”

Soldier of Orange was critically acclaimed on release and received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language film in 1977. It lost out to the Italian period drama, A Special Day.