Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

R Long A bit like a female-cast, French-with-subtitles version of The Dirty Dozen, with just a smidgen of a James Bond flick. Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers it ain't, but it's a good WW II story. A story about brave women, and only one feminist line in it ("You would never have done this to men," in a situation in which, the guy would certainly have done the same to men.

jdonalds-5 I don't often dole out 10 stars for movies. I reserve that for nothing but the best, and this is one of them.I have a little bit of bias first because I am a student of WWII, and second because I lived in Paris France for three years. This was a powerful story well told. I found it completely plausible, having good dialog, great acting, wonderful cinematography, and with a story line that held up solidly throughout the entire movie.There are some rough parts, that is some parts are difficult to observe, but those were in context without being egregious. My French isn't good enough for me to follow without reading the subtitles. I'm sorry because I was not able to give 100% of my attention to the wonderful visuals.I did look this story up enough to learn that it was based on a true story. I don't know how much of this was totally true but it didn't matter because it was so well told.Congratulations to the director Jean-Paul Salomé.I may actually purchase the DVD.

Joxerlives Always been fascinated by the world of SOE ever since growing up watching Secret Army as a kid. This is one of the best films I've ever seen on the subject, much better than Charlotte Gray or TV series like 'Wish Me Luck' which were distinctly mediocre. Was actually unaware that this was a French language film although this doesn't detract from the action at all. It also made sense that French speakers would practice their language exclusively before returning to their homeland so that they don't accidentally lapse into English by mistake or speak British accented French. I would very much have liked to have seen more detail in terms of the commando training which has always been one of the more fascinating aspects of the story (they all seem to be mysteriously parachute qualified virtually instantly?). The story isn't bad although you wonder that they would give such priority to killing a single SS Colonel even if he was given Rommel's ear by the 3rd of June 1944 it would be too late for them to do anything about it. From a military perspective it isn't bad although everyone falls into the shoot from the hip tradition. When the Colonel is giving his briefing I kept expecting the interviewing officers to ask him if the geologist couldn't have been the diversion, intended to draw German forces away from Calais. You also wonder that the French officer tells him the truth about the Mulberry harbours rather than try to buy time by bluffing, saying they're for protecting the landing craft from underwater attack or something?Obviously there's a lot of torture here but it's never gratuitous, you still feel for the captured religious agent who cannot bare to kill herself as she's supposed to and breaks under extreme pain as anyone would. The ending despite the Allied victory is downbeat and maudlin, you'd have liked the sole survivor to have a big family and name her kids after her fallen comrades but things don't always work out that way (presumably she lost her baby due to the torture and may not have been able to have any more?). Her looking through the photos and coming across her friend who has been tortured to death is heartrending although couldn't she have come up with a less drastic 'diversion' at the railway station?. What's perhaps even more interesting is the fate of the young French collaborator who switches sides and becomes the hero of the Resistance, we last see him capturing the SS Colonel's assistant (and what happens to him? Shot as a war criminal or recruited by the West to help in the Cold War?). All told a good film but I'd have liked a little more

jotix100 WWII and the Nazis are favorite subjects to turn into films. "Female Agents" takes a different approach to tell a story about the last days of the conflict. When a British agent is wounded and caught by the Germans while on a mission prior to the landing at Normandy, his superiors in England go into action enlisting exiled brother and sister, Pierre and Louise Desfontaines to fly into France to rescue the wounded man from his captors.There is little preparation before the actual D-Day invasion. It is May, only a few days until the planned Allied landing. Pierre enlists his own widowed sister Louise, an expert in tactical planning to put together a small group to assist her in the rescue operation. Thus, a motley crew is assembled, Louise plus four other women will go to do their contribution to the war effort. The women come from different ways of life. Each one has a particular area of expertise to help the cause.Alas, not everything goes according to plan. The women are facing one of the most feared Nazis in France, SS Col. Heindrich. This is a challenge for the team as they will encounter all kinds of dangers while trying to do their job. The wounded agent is being interrogated by Heindrich in a French hospital. The attempt to get him out proves to be an immense job in which the women will show their courage, but at the same time, it will be a high price to pay for some in the group.Director Jean-Paul Salome, working with co-writer Laurent Vachaud, gives the audience an action packed film. The emphasis is to show the valor of these French women at a time when their country was divided, and also everyone felt the humiliation of the Nazi occupation. The partisan movement worked hard behind the scenes to try and exterminate the enemy from their soil at all costs.Sophie Marceau is fine, as usual, as Louise. The others in the group, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain, and Deborah Francois, do also good work for director Salome. As it is always the case, the bad guy, in this case, Moritz Bleibtreu, has great fun with his evil Col. Heindrich.