Saints and Soldiers: The Void

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Most people aren't going to like my review of this film, just like all of my reviews, but I'm not going to sacrifice honesty for garbage. Almost everyone that reads these reviews, myself included, have already seen the film. If your review doesn't agree with their opinion of the same film, they mark your review as not useful. I wanted so desperately to see this third installment in the Saints and Soldiers franchise and say that Ryan Little learned from the heinous mistakes in "Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed". I have to wonder if my desperation has subconsciously influenced me into saying that this one is at least infinitesimally better than its predecessor, or if it is actually just as bad or worse. When one of my re-enacting associates posted on Facebook that he enjoyed this one more than Fury, it dawned on me what this film is. It is EXACTLY like a re-enactment battle would be! Everyone is in clean uniforms that they are afraid to get dirty (we re-enactors have to pay for our own uniforms, equipment, and blank ammo, which are all very expensive, so we understandably don't want them to get torn or broken to the point where they must be replaced), operating clean, freshly painted vehicles, and speaking lines that are written to be an instructional narrative for the audience so that even those with absolutely no knowledge of the way things were during the war can follow along. This is truly a re-enactment on film, complete with blow-dryer hair and blank ammunition that doesn't put the slightest mark on wooden barrels at point-blank range! What actually makes this film potentially slightly better than its predecessor is the filmmaker's attempt to address the issue of the racist policies and prevailing attitudes in the U.S. Army during World War II (and the attitudes in the U.S. toward Americans of African descent). The problem is, it portrays one soldier out of a dozen or so as being racist, while none of the others share his contempt for Owens, the Negro soldier that circumstances have suddenly thrust in amongst them. The reason that I call this a problem is because in the 1940s, racism in the military and many states was mandated by law, and it was something that the majority of European-Americans grew up with culturally. Even if a particular American was not the type of person to automatically dislike people of African descent for no specific reason, he or she had still been taught that they were an inferior race, and most people just accepted that as being "the way it is". What I call "aggressive racism" ran rampant in the 1940s U.S. military, and those that were simply "passive racists" did not go out of their way to oppose aggressive racism. Very few people stuck up for "Negroes" in those days, and even fewer in the military did so. Therefore, racism was not the "accepted exception" that this film portrays. Additionally, the inevitable conversion of the American racist and changing his attitude because of his interaction with Owens and being told of Owens' mistreatment and his father's lynching because of their race is even more far-fetched. Aside from that issue, the film strays quite a long way from reality on multiple fronts. After all is said and done, my first impulse was to give it only two stars, but I'm giving it an additional star for taking on the issue of racism, even if it took it on in a highly simplified way.

I get that it was low budget, but it appears they still had a lot to work with. Budget won't fix lousy dialogue and plot holes. 40mins still trying to figure out what 'the objective' is. I get that people just want to survive 'war', but that's about all it was. Take "Saving Private Ryan", for instance. There was a mission and a clear goal. This movie? YAWN There's no point even illustrating the instances of 'ridiculous' in this film. I wish I could criticize the actual story, but honestly this was the worse movie I've seen this year, and likely a top 10 all time worst. Such is the case when you have a writer, director, and producer that are all the same person - he never had to put it through the 'BS' test. Lousy. A waste of 40mins.

I watched Fury to see some sweet tank battles, but instead just got a recap of the horrors of Americans at war: murder, rape, suicide, etc. Now Saints and Soldiers: The Void is exactly what I wanted: lots of tank lingo, tank battles, tank maneuvers, tank driving, and a story that is a simple "the good guys are good and they prevail" without making every German look like a maniacal, goose-stepping Nazi. And the Hellcats! They're all "Pew pew Pz.IV!" and the Pz.IV's are like "Derp! BOOM! Take that Hellcats". And (spoiler alert) one guy overcomes racism. What more can you ask for? In summation, it is the dankest, tankest, movie out there right now without having to reflect on the weakness of the human condition. I will watch this again.

Jesse Owens as a black tanker in 1945? Oh, please. That relegates this from an historical movie to an execrably written revisionist fantasy piece, burdened by uniformly dreadful acting and pretty dire TV production values. Yes, the 827th did exist, and had the dreadful discipline problems shown here, but Owens was nowhere near it. The movie is bombastically heavy handed on race relations, and based on risible lies, from Owen's ridiculous presence to begin with, to a clumsy and false story about his father being a war hero rather than a farmer and steel worker. The only logical conclusion is that the Owens shown in this movie is not Jesse Owens the athlete, but a lying fantasist grifting off of his name. How else can you explain it? Cinematically, it's poor. They do the best they can with the small budget that they have, but good luck seeing any ejecting brass. There's even a scene where brass and links from an M2 are showing falling into... I don't know, the floor of the tank? The ammo box? when it's painfully obvious that it's not actually firing, and the poor actor is just shaking it for all he's worth. The HD filming also really highlights the flaws - or rather, the lack of flaws - in the vehicles and uniforms, right down to completely scuff and scratch free goggles. Clearly all fresh off the shelf, or rentals that had to be returned in pristine condition. In some particularly bizarre scenes they even highlight this, featuring the soles of boots that have clearly never touched the ground, or a tanker complaining about sleeping in his mint condition uniform, sporting freshly pressed creases. Continuity is poor, with facial hair appearing and disappearing in the middle of scenes, and firefights where dozens of rounds are fired into a room with a full sized window backdrop without a single pane of glass being hit. Yes, it's got M18s, but the budget only stretches to a few mobile scenes and some fairly shoddy effects, or even lack of effects for the first M18 shot. The research and period detail are decent enough, but there are some curious foibles like, uh, "Jesse" manually working the extractor on an M1 carbine (and the only brass to be seen in the movie ejects), then in the very next shot demonstrating that it's semi automatic. Why? One particularly jarring anachronism is the insistence of most of the cast of demonstrating modern finger-along-receiver trigger discipline, which is great until you remember that it was never done in period. If you're interested in history then you'll be infuriated by the dreadful shoehorning of Owens into the narrative plus the constant flaws, and if you're not interested in history then there's very little reason to watch this.

As being a low budget movie you mustn't expect a "band of Brothers" or depth like "Saving private Ryan" feeling. It lacks a certain dramatic atmosphere. It doesn't 'pull' you in the movie as being one of them. The plot and story though are quite interesting. 2 US hellcat tank destroyers are caught in an ambush by 3 German panzer's in a no-man's land area (called the void). The German ambush had previously caught 2 trucks carrying US POWs and the only survivors are one of the drivers (who is an African-American) and a British lieutenant . The story focuses on racial disputes in the US army at that time. On one hand there's the African-American sergeant Owens who is the most experienced of the lot, trying to take charge of the situation, while 2 men from the tank crew are bigoted against him. The British lieutenant fights his own private battle with the Nazi's just to avenge the death of his fellow prisoners. It all ends well, as you might expect. Sgt Owens saves the lot and the racial tensions seems to disappear... All in all.. No dramatic filming as Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan No feeling of being part of the movie... difficult to relate to someone. but it had a nice story and for once.. the US as well as the German tanks are correct... (not the German uniforms though)...

This franchise seems to get worse and worse with each film. What was "The Void" about? In the past all the other Saints and Soldiers seemed to have a Christian based theme, this was just... Random. The actors I thought were interesting, the scripts and the acting had, lets say, A LOT OF ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT. Barely made it through the movie, hoping some redeeming factor could be found, but just like the whole movie, it continued to disappoint, in every regard. I expect more from Ryan Little and Producer Adam Abel, but everyone has a bad day right...or in this case a bad movie. To clarify, this movie does have some wholesome values, not to give any spoilers away, but an important theme is touched upon, but not enough to qualify it like the first Saints and Soldiers installment did. Would love to see Jasen Wade back... if another one is up and coming.