Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9509 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-10-09
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English, German
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 87 minutes

Synopsis
Based on a true story of heroism and sacrifice, SAINTS AND SOLDIERS was an acclaimed hit on the film festival circuit, winning over 10 best film awards around the country. In some of the most vicious days of World War II, four American soldiers survive a massacre of prisoners and remain trapped behind enemy lines. When they encounter a hiding British officer with valuable intelligence information, the group decides to try and sneak back into friendly territory with the data. However, that proposition is rife with difficulties: the group is mostly unarmed, the weather is freezing cold, they have no food, and the woodlands are crawling with German soldiers. Can each of the men overcome their fear and the odds to deliver the information that may save hundreds of Allied lives? SAINTS AND SOLDIERS is an independently made war film which proves that verisimilitude and emotional impact in the genre is not entirely the province of Hollywood.

Customer Reviews

a moving, thoroughly absorbing film
"Saints and Soldiers" is a gripping account of four soldiers who escape the brutal Malmedy Massacre in December, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. They are behind enemy lines, sleepless, hungry, and just trying to survive, when they find a downed British flight sergeant, whose mission is to reach allied troops with important coded information, so together they make the arduous and dangerous journey with that end in mind.
The plot is a compilation of true stories, and even the one that seems improbable, the meeting of the American and German soldiers who were friends before the war, was taken from a real event.

This film puts a human face on the horror of war. We get to know these men, their fears and their bravery, and they are characters who stay with you long after the film is over.
Made on a tiny budget of under $ 1,000,000 in less than a month, with a cast of unknown actors, this film has won numerous awards, and deservedly so.
Shot on location in Utah, which substitutes for the Ardennes forest, director Ryan Little was also the cinematographer, and has done a superb job with both tasks.

The "extras" used in the massacre scene were "re-enactors", who came from all over the country at their own expense to take part in this film, and memorialize this little known part of WWII history, and it is an amazing opening sequence that sets the mood for the film. Also enhancing the atmosphere is the subtle, lovely soundtrack by J. Bateman and Bart Henderson.

The ensemble cast is excellent, with the most memorable character being "Deacon", played with depth and emotion by Corbin Allred, who captures the innocence of the part. The other marvelous performances are by Alexander Niver Polinsky as Gould, Kirby Heyborne as Flight Sergeant Winley, Lawrence Bagby as Kendrick, Peter Asle Holden as Gunderson, and Ethan Vincent as Rudi.

The DVD extras are fascinating, and give us a glimpse into how this film was ingeniously made on so little money. The director and producers were exceedingly resourceful, and are interviewed in "The Making of Saints and Soldiers", as well as the writers of the terrific script, Geoffrey Panos and Matt Whittaker. Watching the film with their commentary is also interesting and adds to the appreciation of what they call "The little film that could".
This is a beautiful, intimate war film, a small gem not to be missed.
Total running time is 90 minutes.

Soooooooooo Cliched!
This was awful! It's so full of cliches, such as the obviously American actor playing the stereotypical English pilot! Dreadful lines like "I wanna kill me some more Krauts" early on don't help either. Truly poor. So many awards too, although, ironically, they're mostly from American film festivals.

Incredibly bad. Amateurish religious propaganda
Let me start out by saying that this film, regardless of who made it, is appallingly bad. The plot and characters are cliched, and the acting is amateurish to say the least. The Germans are evil, and the token Brit (Oberon Winley, I mean what?!) couldn't pull off a British accent to save his life. Having only glanced at the cover I was impressed by the number of 'awards' it had received, but on closer inspection they all turn out to be local American ones.

My guess is that the almost laughably low quality of the film is due mainly to the fact that it was made by Excel Entertainment Group, an avowedly Mormon film company. Three or four of the five main characters are played by actively evangelising mormons, and seem to have been chosen for this reason rather than for their acting skills. Furthermore, the film is full of more or less pseudo-religious moralising (the evangelist Deacon is portrayed as peaceful and conscientious, and the sceptic Gould as callous and violent). If films with violent or sexual content have to carry warnings to that effect, then this sort of film ought to carry a warning for its evangelising content.

In short: Rubbish of a rare order