Saints and Soldiers: l'honneur des paras

Movies aren't necessarily made to be historically correct (anybody seen Star Wars, or Guardians of the Galaxy). This was quite true to the time period. In the end, it was a very enjoyable movie, and presented a "human" side of people. I wish we actually had that in our real lives here in the US. A great movie to help us leave politics WAY behind.

I enjoyed the first Saints and Soldiers movie back in 2003, & was surprised at how good Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed was on the second go around. The acting was very good from the top three GI's & also give top marks to the German officer as well as the cute little French freedom fighter. The reason for my high marks of the film also come the above story, writing & direction of the movie. The combat had good as flow as well, but mainly it was just a top notch story. If you have a chance to see Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed, get it a watch, it was well worth the hour & half of my time.

Again give Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed your time.

I want to thank the makers of this film for reminding us that enemies can show great love in times of great strife.

While there is a lot of action in this film resulting in a PG-13 rating, care was taken to make this viewable by the whole family and its rating would certainly have to be considered a mild PG-13.

This film goes far beyond the many mindless war films that simply glorify violence. Anyone watching this film would have a renewed sense of hope that we can live more peaceably together.

Kudos to the filmmakers and keep on doing what you do. Even if you don't have the Hollywood budgets, you make entertaining, truthful and inspiring films I can take my kids to. Thank you.

Overall 'Airborne Creed' is a good film. It is beautifully shot and the main characters are quite convincing (contrary to the dialogues which often are not). All in all the story is fairly decent (although historically inaccurate, to say the least) but also very predictable; they could have got much more out of it. What makes the film average at best is firstly its Hollywoodesque usage of music. The soundtrack is "so heroic and mournful you can almost picture the tears running down the musician's face" (Yahtzee); it forces emotions down the viewer's throat rather than letting them experience themselves. Secondly, the potential of the film's portrayal of good & evil was barely exploited. Why is it that in American films the heroes always die a slow, painful death, whereas for the enemy it is 'one shot, one kill'? It is really not necessary to refuse giving the enemy a face to make the audience understand who/what is good or evil; after all, the story of 'Airborne Creed' clearly shows that the makers were thinking further than this black/white image and striving to add some shades of grey to it. It is a shame they dared not follow this insight consistently.

Of the deluge of low budget World War II movies coming out of both Europe and the USA this little indie effort is better than most. I can see where great care has been given here to getting people who sound German to speak German, French to speak French. It may not have been shot in the South of France, but the DOP has spent some considerable care to give the film the warm tones of that part of Europe and the CGI shots blend nicely to convince of this too.

The plot is a little wish washy, men taking part in Dragoon, (The invasion of the South of France, August 1944) end up helping the French resistance on an unrelated mission. The number of characters is kept small and simple and the action scenes are nicely directed. The acting here is earnest, the cast aren't going to win any Oscars, but they don't make the mistake of over selling their performances like so many inexperienced actors would. Everyone here does a good job.

Its a small film and a small story, so don't be expecting Band of Brothers, but its well made with care and love and a great example of how to make a small but interesting film, as opposed to the terrible 'Rhineland' which felt like a bunch of re-in-actors out on a jolly. Here you can tell everyone involved wanted to make a good authentic film with a bit of heart, they succeeded.

If you liked the original your unlikely to be too disappointed, I personally wasn't and this has made it into my WW2 Collection.