Review of Saints and Soldiers (2003) by Paul N — 30 Jan 2012

A pretty formulaic war movie. No real surprises, and the treatment of deeper issues of faith and honor are pretty slight. The film is strong in that it stays pretty well focused on a very small plot line. But the film also has deeper ambitions to answer Big Questions, and in this regard it is most unsatisfying.

Sarge & Deacon are US soldiers leading another soldier and a medic - all that is left of a massacre of allied forces captured by Germans. They need to get a downed English pilot they discover (though precisely how they discover him is a rather poorly explained affair) with critical intelligence to Allied forces ASAP. They're racing the elements and enemy troops.

Deacon is religious (hence the name), and from the details given in the movie likely Mormon (though I don't think they ever clearly state this). Gould is the cynical medic harboring a secret, and who has lost whatever faith he might once have had. They spar briefly, but their exchanges are too few.

Characters are not well developed despite the very slow pace of the film. There is a lot of time spent on false alarms as well as real alarms, when the movie seems to want to be character-driven. It wasn't enough action or dialog to really accomplish either one very well.

This is not a complex movie. It's not necessarily a bad movie, it just doesn't give itself the space it needs to address the issues that it wants to raise. What is the nature of faith? What happens when we die? What is living worth if we aren't willing to die for something? How do we trust one another? These are major questions that the film dabbles with but never really dives into in a satisfying manner.