"Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed" opens with this preface. Two months after D-Day the Allied Forces initiated Operation Dragoon. Its purpose was to reclaim Southern France. The 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team was called into action. August 15, 1944. Provence, France 5:03 AM This entertaining but low-budget World War II epic lacks spectacle. Basically, watching this movie is like watching "A Walk in the Sun." You'll spot the CGI scenes because the budget couldn't accommodate the aerial flying shots. Director Ryan Little and scenarists Lincoln Hoppe and Lamont Grey confine the action to fewer than 10 soldiers. Three U.S. Paratroopers, Cpl. James Rossi (Corbin Allred), Sgt. Caleb Jones (David Nibley), and Cpl. Harland 'Bud' Curtis (Jasen Wade) are separated from their troops and make contact with the resistance. A German officer, Erich Neumann (Lincoln Hoppe), wander through this war movie. Eventually, after the Americans and the French Resistance disable a tank, they are left either dead or dying. Neumann encounters a wounded Rossi in the woods. Surprisingly, Neumann takes Rossi to a shed and patches him up. At the same time, Neumann is dying from his own bullet wound. Briefly, these two soldiers have a conversation and approach each other on the level of human beings rather than soldiers. Rossi passes out and awakens when Americans show up. Rossi has always sought a souvenir, specifically a German officer's Lugar pistol, but by the end of "Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed," he has renounced that objective. Consequently, Rossi is the only character who changes over time.
"Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed" takes a personal approach to war. This is the small picture or microcosm. The two biggest scenes involve the capture of two Germans masquerading as Americans and the attack on the German tank. The editing is good, especially when Bud is dying and he believes that his girl back in the states is cradling him when in fact it is a French Resistance woman. Most of the hardware in this little movie looks authentic. Toward the end in a medical unit, we see an American tank cruise through a scene. If you're looking for wall-to-wall World War II violence in the "Saving Private Ryan" mode, you're going to be terribly disappointed. Although it is a low-key actioneer, ""Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed" ranks as an above-average epic with good editing. This would be an example of a World War II movie where a German is presented in a sympathetic light. Nothing really unsavory occurs in this film.
"Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed" takes a personal approach to war. This is the small picture or microcosm. The two biggest scenes involve the capture of two Germans masquerading as Americans and the attack on the German tank. The editing is good, especially when Bud is dying and he believes that his girl back in the states is cradling him when in fact it is a French Resistance woman. Most of the hardware in this little movie looks authentic. Toward the end in a medical unit, we see an American tank cruise through a scene. If you're looking for wall-to-wall World War II violence in the "Saving Private Ryan" mode, you're going to be terribly disappointed. Although it is a low-key actioneer, ""Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed" ranks as an above-average epic with good editing. This would be an example of a World War II movie where a German is presented in a sympathetic light. Nothing really unsavory occurs in this film.