The Fallen

Though impressively ambitious and making the most of a small budget and talented cast, director Ari Taub's feature concentrates so intently on the day-to-day minutiae of infantry life on World War II's European front that the bigger picture gets lost. October 1944: as German troops and their Italian allies attempt to hold their positions in northern Italy's Apennine mountains while under increasing attacks by rebel Italian partisans, Allied troops press their way north in hopes of smashing "the Gothic Line" — Germany's final line of defense. Caught in the no-man's land between these two fronts, ordinary Italian villagers either side with the fascists or secretly...