Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed (2012)

Wonderful character development!

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Because I enjoy Saints and Soldiers, the first film in this trio (it's not a "trilogy" because the stories are not connected), so much every time I see it, I had high expectations for this film. The production team even assured me when I voiced my concerns about their treatment of my beloved Airborne that they "think we got this one right". The first one was so well-made, especially when one considers the shoestring budget upon which it was made. I even made sure that I saw this one in a theater, as I did with the first one.I was utterly and thoroughly disappointed.Here's a partial list of problems with this film, and this is where the spoilers start:1. The film takes place during World War II, which ended in Europe on May 8, 1945. The "Airborne Creed" was created in 1977. Some of us would call the title a 32-year anachronism, so we've already started out on bad footing.2. Jasen Wade's character, Cpl. Curtis, in the first six minutes of the film, watches a flare go up over the DZ (drop zone). Even non-combat personnel in the Army are trained in basic training to NEVER look at the flare. Okay, now he's blind for ten minutes. Well, he would have been in the real world.3. Curtis is captured by a squad of Germans. Corbin Allred's character, T/5 Rossi, happens upon the group, but he isn't seen. To rescue Curtis, Rossi tosses two grenades into the clearing where the Germans are about to shoot Curtis. Rossi has been issued special grenades that only kill Germans, so Curtis is untouched by any grenade fragments. He exchanges gunfire with the three remaining Germans and rescues Curtis.4. Curtis and Rossi are wearing American flag patches on their left sleeves, and no division insignia. Curtis is wearing his above his rank insignia, and Rossi is wearing his below it. The optional flag patch was worn by 82nd Airborne troopers on the right shoulder during D-Day for Operation Neptune/Overlord, and generally discarded within a day or two. Nevertheless, the filmmakers must have felt it necessary to incorporate every Airborne cliché that they could find.5. The three American paratroopers upon whom the story is centered come into contact with Emilie (Virginie Fourtina Anderson) a member of the French Resistance, who doesn't speak much English. However, during the only scene in which she does speak English, she does so fluently, without an accent, and with a pretty good vocabulary. When I was in France on a family vacation in 2012 and encountered someone that "didn't speak much English" it meant that their English vocabulary was almost as limited as my French vocabulary, and their accent was very strong.6. In a later scene, Emilie seems to forget that there's a war on, and decides to challenge Rossi to a marksmanship contest. Because he also sees no reason to not waste ammunition and risk giving away their position to any German patrols in a mile or so radius around them, he accepts the challenge. Naturally, the girl in the resistance shoots better than the highly trained professional soldier does, which you couldn't possibly see coming, right? Well, here's the secret: she uses a period-correct Soviet Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle which would not have been in France at that time, and if it had, she certainly wouldn't have been able to find ammunition for it.7. The group meets up with an American officer and his jeep driver. This is the same scene in which the aforementioned marksmanship contest takes place. After the contest, the officer and his driver are about to drive away when Sgt. Jones (David Nibley) notices a pair of German binoculars in the back of the Jeep. Naturally, that means that the officer and his driver are spies. Why? Because in the world in which this film was produced, no one in World War II ever picked up equipment that belonged to the enemy. During the ensuing interrogation we learn that the American major is actually a German spy, but of course he is trained and hardened and has no intention of revealing any pertinent information. That is, until one of the French Resistance men shoots and kills his partner. At that point, he rolls over so fast it makes one's head spin. He provides full details of his mission (which of course, must all be true, because I spy wouldn't falsify that sort of thing), contact's name, contact's address, etc.8. In one of the last few scenes before the end of the film, the Americans and the French decide to attack a German tank with small arms and hand grenades. Funny how these three Americans, one of which is a sergeant, seem to be the only ones that missed the training session about attacking an armored vehicle. If they had been to that training, like the rest of the Army, they would have known that those types of weapons are useless against armor. That's why it's armor. One must use anti-armor weapons against it, like an anti-tank weapon (Bazooka), a tank, an artillery gun, etc. If one does not have anti-armor weapons, one does not attack armor. Period.This one could not have even lived up to even low expectations. It is a totally unrealistic fiasco that even Corbin Allred's strong performance (with the script he was given) could not pull out of the dog house if he had a three-inch thick raw steak hanging from his neck! The filmmakers either did not bother to consult with anyone that knows anything about military tactics, or chose to totally disregard the consultation.

The level to which this films dumbs down the horrors of war in order to make the film fit within the PG-13 rating bracket is genuinely offensive. Right from the off when it shows two French men being executed with the bullets hitting the walls behind them without leaving a scratch on either their clothes or bodies it is clear the film takes this ridiculous stance of censorship.War films should show war for how genuinely horrific it actually is. You can't have people just falling over without a drop of blood when they get shot or the crew of a tank crawling out with just superficial blackening after a frag grenade goes off inside the vehicle. It is just pathetic and in really bad taste.It becomes even weirder when the film will happily show someone brutally beating a man to death with his bare fists and has the main characters bleeding out and dying long and drawn out deaths. It kind of made it feel like the German soldiers were just expendable robots and aren't even human in the eyes of the PG-13 censorship guide.This would be excusable if the film actually had some kind of plot or direction but it really doesn't. Halfway through it goes wildly off the rails with a pointless shooting contest and lengthy scene of characters talking about home and blah blah cliché cliché. It was clear very quickly that the two soldiers in the jeep were Germans in disguise yet no one picked up on this until way into their boring conversation. I gave up when they decided to pointlessly attack a vastly superior German force with a tank and half track. The scene seemed to exist solely to facilitate the deaths of all but the two main characters and everyone just kind of went along with the ridiculous plan. The French Resistance were guerrilla fighters known for sabotage - not for standing on a hill out in the open firing at a tank and twenty odd Germans. It's like they all have a death wish or something.I skipped through the rest of the film after that and saw that it just looked very boring and contrived anyway. Oh and even with my basic French I could tell that the English subtitles were very flimsy and gist like translations which often missed out a lot of detail. I guess that matched the dull script though.An entirely pointless film.

Yes, the film is low budget, and the combat scenes show this, however. the movie follows group of paratroopers who meet local french resistance and set out to free there friends and rejoin the rest of their stick. Then i wont ruin the film for you but the story changes from what i feel was meant to be the real story, but still good none the less. This movie isn't a huge blockbuster gripping film but VERY moving and an emotional movie to watch. If your expecting saving private Ryan don't waste your time, its not like that but still a good movie to watch. I think this movie depicts human nature and the stresses of war more than anything else. Doesn't sound great I know. But watch it. you will be pleasantly surprised.

Saints and Soldiers surprised me by the one dimensional shabby characters involved in it and the Hollywood shabby portrayal of German soldiers as monsters. Some good shooting and movie techniques give it nice technical quality. Clearly the concept of war is unclear to the writer even more than it is to me. If you wish to waste your time on an hour long political propaganda well this is your movie. Even a kid could see that these people never existed and never will exist- recommendation if you feel like watching something which does not involve too much thinking there is the move "6 bullets" with Van Damme. Personally the first ten minutes of this movie felt like an insult to my intelligence after that it gets funny. To the creator of this movie and to all the other Hollywood filmmakers: please stop wasting resources trying to change history and the awareness of young people. And by the way, if Germany had not attacked Russia all of Europe would have spoken German probably.