CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Portia Hilton
Blistering performances.
Freeman
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
grantss
OK, ish. Had potential, but the historical inaccuracies, plot holes, superficial moralising and other contrivances damage the movie. Action sequences are good though.I suspect this was made to cash in on the success of the superb Band of Brothers, especially as one episode of that series covered the 101st Airborne Division's involvement in the Battle of the Bulge. Making the unit involved in Saints and Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, even though no members of the 101st were at the Malmedy massacre, reeks of poetic abuse.
jcook56050
A lot has already been written about this little film that could. So, let me say that one of our local Christian stations played Saints and Soldiers on Memorial Day. I had my doubts, but it's rare that a highly rated film gets placed on the schedule for midday from this station. So, I sat for a while to check it out. By the time I knew what was happening, the film was over. Wow. That doesn't happen very often.For such a low budget film, this is one of the best human interest stories I've ever seen from the World War II perspective. It gets down and dirty in the trenches and explores the inner doubts, fears and certainties of the soldier's reality. It even, God forbid, shows us that even the enemy can have members that are both compassionate and understanding in the face of mindless human tragedy and death.My compliments to the extraordinary effort the technicians and extras put into placing these actors into real human situations and into a scenario that is hard to detect as a forest in Utah. We had a hard time figuring the location, even though we had been there in person. If high budget motion pictures had just a fraction of the attention to detail and freedom to express real stories that this one has, what an amazing set of movies we'd see on the big screen.I can do nothing other than highly recommend this film. It is exceptional. (written by a U. S. Coast Guard veteran).
Tom Phelan
This movie follows 4 soldiers who are present at the Malmedy Massacre but who escape and make their way through enemy controlled territory back to allied lines. I watched this movie because I've read about the Malmedy massacre, and given the title and the fact that Chuck Colson recommended it, I thought it might have a perspective on the atrocity worth my time. Wrong! Intellectually and morally this movie is absolutely weightless and the rewriting of history is offensive. The depiction of what happened at Malmedy is pretty close to what some of the Germans involved claimed happened. Why would the Germans involved tell the truth? Furthermore, the German story is contradicted by the forensic evidence and contradicts the independent eye witness testimony of several survivors. The fact is that many of the men killed were undoubtedly executed--close range, bullet to the head, clustered together. The others were gunned down as they tried to escape, probably once they knew they would die otherwise. Further evidence against the German story is that Malmedy wasn't an isolated event, there were a number of other massacres, some involving civilians, attributed to the same group of German SS soldiers. So why did the movie choose to depict the event based on the German account? Because the truth would have conflicted with the platitudinous main theme of "we're all the same, we just wear different uniforms". I am a Christian so of course I believe we are all created in the image of God, but I find this kind of moral equivalence nauseating and intellectually weightless. The other thing that significantly detracts from this movie is that it is extremely predictable. I knew the ultimate fate of every character 1/2 way through the movie and many of these scenes were cliché. I gave it 4 stars because as a movie some of the scenes had their moments, I didn't turn it off, and there are so many other movies out there that are much worse so I have to leave room at the bottom to rate them.
marinesdaughtr
Having not read the book, I will say that this movie was very good. True, it wasn't as good as Band of Brothers, but still superb. One thing I loved was that the entire movie went without one F word. I disagree with the reviewer who said it had Mormon overtones. Not one thing in the movie mentioned any religion, so I don't understand why he/she thought that it did. One character served a mission and taught a family. Many religions send missionaries abroad to teach. He's also seen reading scriptures. Many people do. And, if I was ever in a war and behind enemy lines, I'd sure be doing some praying myself. Great film. I wish more script writers would find other adjectives than the F word.
