There's this star studded cast but no characters! My husband, a major WWII enthusiast, agreed that an additional 45 minutes or so to develop a relationship with the characters would have made it more enjoyable. The other issue we had with the film was our inability to understand much of the dialogue from these great British actors. While realizing this is likely our shortcoming, we plan to watch it when it hits tv so we can find out what was being said with the aid of closed captioning.