This made-for-cable film based on a true story plays like a fine art house feature, with some genuinely gripping and novel situations. Not a run-of-the-mill war film, but an intimate and powerful study of the moral complexities and horrors of battle. During the winter of 1944, in western Germany, an emotionally and physically exhausted American private (Ron Eldard, Sleepers) is promoted against his will when he serendipitously survives as the rest of his comrades die around him. Whether or not he's a hero, coward or pure victim of circumstance is the point of this searingly affecting film, which dramatises one of the most senseless battles of the Second World War. Given both intelligence and power by the sure-handed direction of John Irvin, this is wise, affecting television that should not be missed.

In WWII Western Germany, Private David Manning reluctantly leaves behind a mortally wounded fellow soldier and searches for survivors from his platoon, only to learn from commanding officer Captain Pritchett that they have all been killed in action. Despite requesting a discharge on the grounds of mental disability, Manning is promoted to sergeant and assigned to lead a new platoon of young inductees.