Legion of Honor

three screenplay writers including the original author and director crafted this lukewarm screenplay. what we saw was a bunch of young men who came from all different regions or countries to blindly joined the french foreign legion, a mercenary-like commissioned army to deal with the Algeria uproar fighting France's colonization for independence. i have to say that all the young men who played the recruits of the french legion did great performances, their roles were very tough and rough, not an easy job to play those roles. but in the meantime, they looked not quite competent, especially the main character, the English young man who joined the force just because he got a broken heart from an unsuccessful romance in england. this young actor, although did a pretty nice performance, but at the same time, also a pretty bad cast. too youngish, too baby faced and also looked too unconvincingly weak. his best friend and comrade then became a turned coat who joined the opposition insurgent was a better cast but still not quite fit the role. the fighting scenes were brutal but not well directed and performed. if compare to similar historical background 'intimate enemy', 'incendis' and several other great ones, this 'deserter' would not even qualified as a good movie, just a lame, lukewarm movie that failed to connect the audiences or a viewer like me.

This is a good 'Foreign Legion' Film and a fairly open representation of a very complicated Period of 20th century History.

France,Algeria and the Foreign Legion all were changed by this series of events and for Simon Murray this was very much a significant time of Personal development and Experience. He also wrote a Book about this time which is also a good read for anyone interested in Legion History.

This is one of Tom Hardy's early Films,but in my Opinion, underrated.

He brought depth and character to 'Dupont' and while the Script lost a little clarity at times by the end of the tale Hardy related the complex nature of Dupont and the Challenges facing many at that time and place!

Almost watchable until the cafe scene 41 minutes in. Give me a break!

I watched this film with interest. It appears to have some vague reality to the history of the Algerians fighting against the French.

Amazon lists this film as produced in 2016, when in fact it was filmed/produced in 2002. I could not figure out why Tom Hardy is so young in this movie if it had been produced in 2016. The fact it was produced in 2002 makes more sense" . Hardy and his colleague "Simon Murray" are 18 years younger!

I should study the French Foreign Legion a bit, because I am unaware of the brutality imposed by senior officers upon the recruits and the junior ranks. Paul Fox as Simon Murray is dazzlingly good looking. Hardy's youthful look is quite striking.

This movie is listed as "Legion of Honor on Amazon. On IMDb, it is listed as "Deserter". It is a bit confusing, as I came away from this not knowing exactly who the deserter was. I also question the historical accuracy of this film. Having said that, I do like it and I may watch it again to put together some of the "missing pieces".

Sometimes it helps to step outside of the familiar. In "Deserter", my American perspective gets broadened by looking at an Arab country through the eyes of a young Brit placed within the French Foreign Legion. With my own country removed entirely from the scene, I thus start with no default "side" here. The movie does start off following the FFL, but of course expands before too long to show us (some of) the Arab side as well.

I'd like to know, but don't know, how true to reality the movie is. Most of what we're shown seemed very plausible to me. A few bits did feel "Hollywoodized" but perhaps were reasonable distillations of multiple events.

What made the biggest impression on me was the discomfort of Murray as he came face to face with the inexorable underlayment of the whole situation: that military occupation is fundamentally wrong because it is not consensual. That's a good lesson for everyone.

I'm surprised this only has a 5.3. I wouldn't call it a great movie, but it's well done and involving and deserves a higher score.

My biggest complaint is that the accents were hard for me to understand, especially near the beginning. With the mixture of different national origins of the characters and some of the dialog being in French with the rest in (mostly) French-accented English, a lot of the early lines were lost on me. I almost stopped watching after about 10 minutes due to this. I'm glad I didn't.