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THE SILENT ARMY is a Dutch film looking at the plight of child soldiers fighting for warlords in sub-Saharan Africa. The film humanises the story by having as its central protagonist a white man desperately hunting for the kidnapped son of a friend who has been taken by a notorious general and who is now a ruthlessly cold-blooded killer.

The film I can best compare this with is JOHNNY MAD DOG, a Liberian effort which had greater authenticity and realism but hardly any kind of story. Thus THE SILENT ARMY is the better picture, even though the story is spoilt a little by the low budget; some of the moments are rather cheesy (such as a CGI explosion) which is a pity given the grittiness seen elsewhere in the story.

The language is a mixture of English and Dutch. The acting is generally authentic and compelling enough to keep you watching. The film is violent and harrowing without ever being disgustingly graphic. The actor who played the warlord made the film for me with his completely chilling and efficient performance devoid of emotion and feeling. It's a film worth watching if you can handle the subject matter.

This is one of the most underestimated movies i have ever seen, people go to this movie prejudged as hell! No matter what Marco would have done they would all voted an 1 anyway, they don't recognize acting skills when they see it.. Marco Borsato did a good job in this movie, it was his first movie even!

This movie is really worth going to, a Must-see and everyone of these lame people who voted a 1 and saying that this movie failed, they fell in Marco Borsatos trap! Haha, Marco Borsato used his popularity to get people to go see this movie and FOCUS those people's attention on the whole of children soldier subject, and when you look at this movie you will get focused on that subject trust me!

So all the people who say this movie didn't work and went to it to watch it! The movie surely worked on them! They went there, not cause it would gonna be a great movie, not cause the subject attracts them BUT BECAUSE MARCO BORSATO PLAYED IN IT! they totally fell in the "attract-attention-from-people-trap" and Marco even made this a good movie, double win for Marco! 2-0

First of all; the behavior of Marco Borsato is very rookies and secondly you can save time when you watch a Warchild ad, because this movie is just one huge Warchild advert.

All the effort of showing the Warchild (a NGO) case is really annoying and this is a bad ego trip of Marco Borsato Borsato is the only hero of the movie and the Africans all seem to be war victims or war criminals and nothing else. If a naive cook from Europe becomes a action "hero" in the way that it has being filmed it looks like a nice piece of imperialism.

The subject of child soldiers has already been told and filmed hundreds of times and this movie is not a good way to show the problem, because its just a personal ego trip of those who made it.

"White Light" is the story of a cook (Eduard Zuiderwijk played by Marco Borsato) in South Africa who wants to find the child of one of his employees. The child (Abu) was abducted to become a child soldier. The story shows the impact of such experiences to the children.

There is a lot to do about this movie since the popular Dutch singer Marco Borsato had no acting experience. He uses his popularity to support the WarChild foundation. This movie gets you right in the middle of what WarChild is all about. Marco is a typical 'feel good' guy with 'feel good' music. Don't expect a 'feel good' movie though. Reality will hit you hard in the face.

Accept the fact that Marco is a rookie actor and within the first 15 minutes you will enjoy one of the better Dutch movies ever made.

A Dutch guy runs a restaurant in Uganda. He lives there together with his young son and their life isn't quite all that - he suffers from the trauma of having lost his wife and the political stability in the country isn't quite right either. When things go from bad to worse he's forced to do something about it.

I guess the story could be worse. It is pretty standard, but nothing too bad. What makes this film bad is the fact that one of the main players is in his daily life a singer/entertainer (and a successful one at that), but he's not an actor. Most of the scenes he's staring into the camera much like a rabbit stares into the headlights of a car just before being run over. The other actors in the film do a better job, but the irritation of having one bad main character is so bad that their good work is overshadowed by his bad work.

As a political message this film brings too much action, too much heroism. It might have left a deeper impact (on me at least) if it had not tried to be an action film. Then the real painful truth behind it all might have dawned some better, but not now. Now it's once seen, twice forgotten.

4 out of 10 toe curling bad acted scenes