I highly recommend a movie called Saints and Soldiers. It’s an excellent WWII flick. It won “Best Picture” accolades at 11 minor film festivals in the US and Europe. This is the best movie you haven’t heard about because there are no big-name stars in the cast. Saints and Soldiers is not a vehicle for a box office champion. It succeeds on the quality of the writing, acting and directing. Imagine that!
The synopsis of the movie, taken from www.saintsandsoldiers.com is:
“‘Saints and Soldiers’ is a dramatic, intense and heroic WWII film about members of the Greatest Generation struggling to be both good men and good soldiers.
In mid-December 1944, while Hitler’s army blitzkriegs through the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, American sharpshooter Corporal Nathan Greer, known as Deacon, finds himself held captive with over one hundred other American soldiers in a snow-covered field.
As panic and confusion ensue, the German soldiers open fire on the American prisoners, in the historical event now known as the Malmedy Massacre. Greer, his friend Gordon Gunderson, and a handful of others escape the massacre by hiding in the nearby woods.
The small band of soldiers come across a stranded British intelligence officer with valuable information to be delivered to Allied forces, further upping the stakes of their already dangerous situation.
With few weapons, no food and a strained camaraderie, this tiny band must take on the unforgiving winter to fight their way back to Allied territory.”
Saints and Soldiers is rated PG-13 for war-related violence. There is quite a bit of death and blood, but the language is mild and there is no sex/ . This isn’t your typical “shock and awe” Hollywood film. It’s well done.
The synopsis talks about there being a “strained camaraderie” among the men. The most interesting example to watch is the tension between Deacon and the medic, Steven Gould. Deacon is a Bible-carrying former missionary who believes because of what he’s seen while Gould is an atheist who doesn’t believe because of what he’s seen. Their relationship is one of several sub-plots that help make this movie well worth watching.
If you want to see heroes, this is the movie for you.
