I became familiar with the Saints and Soldiers series while perusing You Tube. I was intrigued enough by these different kind of war movies to purchase Saints and Soldiers Airborne Creed.

The strength of the movie lies in its ability to tell a simple story. Saints and Soldiers are not epic movies in that they try to cover too much. The focus instead is on ordinary American soldiers and in the this case one German soldier.

The backdrop is three American Airborne soldiers (517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team)  are separated from their units during a drop in Southern France. In the process of trying to rejoin their units they rescue some French partisans from the Germans.

Each American soldier has a private story that is told through flash backs as they rescue the partisans and get into a few fire fights with German units. I think there is much here in understanding war from the common man’s point of view as well as the psychology involved in taking another person’s life, something I think it rather abhorrent to most people despite what we see in the average, blood and guts, one-man army movies.

Still from the movie. The look in the Sergeant’s eyes captures the moment well.

There is also a spiritual side to these movies, hence the title of the series.

I did think there was one weird part that seemed out-of-place but the story is supposed to be based on something that really happened so I’ll give the incident the benefit of the doubt and will not issue a spoiler here.

I made the mistake of reading one review before I bought the movie. The reviewer gave it high marks for realism. For example, the German tank looks like a mock-up of a PZ III and the German half-track looks like the real deal so history buffs will not be disappointed by the attention to detail. The reviewer even said the story was okay but at the end wondered what the point was.

German Panzer III tank. The one in the movie looks a bit like this. By 1944 most remaining Panzer III’s were converted into the more useful Stug III assault guns.

I didn’t know what to expect and so almost didn’t buy the movie. I was glad that I did though and do believe I got the point.

War sucks. People have to fight wars. Sometimes they do things they would rather not. Sometimes you are surprised by your enemy in a good way. Wars mean people die and perhaps most importantly what lies beyond death?

I’m going to order the first movie in the series to add to my collection.

From the first movie: