Le Déserteur

Not the most exciting film in the world, and it would've been nice to see a bit more action on the battlefield, but as a cheap knockoff of much better movies like Full Metal Jacket, Deserter isn't bad at all.

Brady is quite effective in an early role, his camaraderie with his fellow soldiers is quite touching sometimes and what war scenes exist are efficient enough for a low budget flick. There is also effective use of overseas locations that add to the atmosphere.

For fans of his earlier work, it's well worth checking out... just don't expect it to go above 'average' at any point, that's all. 5/10.

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.

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.

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

Kinda good, kinda bad.

For the most part, though, I did mostly like 'Deserter'. It's got a weird sorta vibe to it and feels cheaply made, though with that said the locations are convincing enough. Tom Hardy does well in just his second movie, though does sport a very iffy French accent. Paul Fox is alright in (despite what that presumably retrospective poster suggests) the lead role, he looks a little like Donald O'Connor in this, so there's that.

I can fully see why some may dislike this. For me, it's one to narrowly file under 'good'.

///// 2002 Simon: An English Legionnaire Directed by Martin Huberty.