Review of Saints and Soldiers (2003) by Ryan D — 27 Aug 2004

Having grown up (for the most part) in Utah, as a Mormon mired within the central hub of Mormon culture, the recent Mormon movement in cinema (which began with the mediocre [i]God's Army[/i] several years back and has only gone downhill from there) has fascinated me. Unlike [i]The Singles Ward[/i] or [i]The Home Teachers[/i], [i]Saints and Soldiers[/i] wasn't created to serve solely as a 90 minute informercial for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is an interesting WWII story, told within the obvious confines of budget limitations.

The plot follows a group of four American soldiers and a downed British pilot stuck behind Germany's front line with some crucial intel to deliver to the Allies. Much like the underrated [i]A Midnight Clear[/i], the setting is forested and frequently blanketed in snow. Ryan Little, the director, does a fantastic job of eliciting a sense of time and place. Although the budget was certainly restrictive and the film is a little talky, there is an action scene at the beginning of the film and one at the end, and both scenes were admirable, although they lacked a certain sense of scope.

Any problems I had with the film were spawned by the screenplay, which all too often sounded like the result of a screenwriting exercise at a community college. In one awkward scene, the British pilot exhorts the other soldiers to share their deepest, darkest secret, because they're on a perilous mission, and sharing intimacies will promote loyalty. Each soldier proceeds to share a secret from their past, which I suppose passes as some semblance of character development, and finally, the British pilot is implored to share a secret of his own. "I won't share a secret," he says, "I don't know you blokes well enough." Wa-wa-whaaaaaaaaaa. You know, kind of cheesy. There is also a recurring joke involving a soldier trying to obtain cigarettes from the British pilot that wears thin very quickly. Any humor in the film was polite and predictable, much like the humor in a high school play.

[i]Saints and Soldiers[/i] doesn't have a potent pro-Mormon agenda; instead it has a very admirable and accessible message about trust and loyalty, with an underlying vein of humanism. In fact, the tenets of Mormonism are not even discussed, and the one Mormon soldier seems merely spiritual and introspective; Mormonism is not his character's defining attribute. [i]Saints and Soldiers[/i] is a fairly enjoyable film that is easily accessable by all faiths. It bogs down for some time in the middle, but its hard to hate a film who's heart is so obviously in the right place.