“Saints and Soldiers: Airborne
Creed” is a Mollywood movie that is the sequel to “Saints and Soldiers”. Mollywood movies are movies made for Mormon
audiences and/or by Mormon directors. In
this case, both apply. The director is
Ryan Little who directed all three in the “Saints and Soldiers” trilogy. His war
movies are noted for not being overly religious and having a theme of
not all religious soldiers are saints and not all Nazis are sinners. This second installment in the series is not
a sequel to the first. It is set during
Operation Dragoon, which was the Anglo-American invasion of Southern France in
WWII.
The movie opens by introducing
us to a German officer named Neumann (Lincoln Hoppe). He goes from writing a heart-felt letter home
to his wife and kids to ordering the execution of two French Resistance
fighters. Meanwhile, members of the 517th
Regimental Combat Team land behind enemy lines in Provence. (Little is incapable of showing men
parachuting.) Corporal Curtis (Jason
Wade) gets captured by Germans using a German shepherd, naturally. Curtis is rescued by T5 Rossi (Corbin Allred
from the first “Saints and Soldiers”).
He proceeds to kill all the Germans by himself. As usual in a war movie, there are no wounded
because that complicates matters. War
movies have a much higher mortality rate than real war. The duo becomes a trio when they hook up with
Sgt. Jones. They recite the Airborne
Creed (even though it was not created until 1946). They sit around chatting for a long time even
though they are supposed to be attempting to link up with their unit eight
miles away. No rush, there’s just a war
on. It’s time for back-stories via
flashbacks. Rossi is torn by the death of
his best friend. Curtis remembers his
girl-friend. Jones is the religious one
and flashes back to telling his minister-father about his decision to join the
Army, but not as a chaplain.
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| Saints and Soldiers: Walking and Talking |
They encounter Neumann and the
almost-chaplain Jones apparently executes him. They next run into a comely
French sniper-lass named Emilie (Virginie Fourtina Anderson) who recruits them
to help rescue some Resistance captives.
More walking and talking. They
encounter two Americans in a jeep. One
of them uses the phrase “short man on the totem pole”. What an odd thing for an American to
say! While that faux slang is hanging in
the air, Emilie and Rossi have a shooting contest. I kid you not. This builds to a tussle with a German tank
and half-track and the resurrection of a bad German. There is a bonding scene involving a wounded
paratrooper and a certain war criminal.
“I’m supposed to hate you”, but as a Mormon I can see the good in you. There is also a reunion between a marksman
and a markswoman.
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| There's always time for a shooting match |
The curse of the sequel. “Saints and Soldiers” was a major surprise
and did very well on the film festival circuit.
It has been the most successful Mollywood crossover. Most of those films have had an appeal
limited only to Mormon audiences and have been savaged by critics. I was prepared for “Airborne Creed” to be a
lesser movie than its predecessor, but I was not prepared for it to suck. It is, in fact, a major misfire by
Little. The main problem is that it is
boring. There is way too much walking
and talking. There is no sense of
urgency for these dudes. You would think
that reuniting with the main force would be a higher priority for three
paratroopers trapped behind enemy lines.
Throwing in the Resistance subplot should have juiced the narrative, but
once Emilie is introduced the movie slumps back into its leisurely pace. The acting is what you would expect from a
low budget film – sincere, but pedestrian.
The dialogue is blah, but at least there is little sermonizing. Like “Saints and Soldiers”, the movie is not
overtly religious. You would not know it
was produced by Mormons unless you read about this (or had me tell you
this). The flashbacks are thankfully
brief and do their character development efficiently, but the actions and
motivations of the three paratroopers have little relation to their prior
experiences. Jones, in particular,
seems to be having no second thoughts about abandoning his religious
upbringing. However, his supposed
execution of Neumann is hardly believable and the off camera gun shot is not
going to fool anyone. (Sorry, spoiler
alert!) The movie is full of clichés and
is very predictable. There is little action
and there is a lack of suspense.
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| Mormons commit atrocities too |
“Saints and Soldiers: Airborne
Creed” is hard to fault. I have to give
it credit for attempting to bring some recognition to the paratroopers who
participated in the overlooked Operation Dragoon. A better movie would have informed the
audience that members of the 517th Regimental Combat Team and the
other airborne units did a great job in the operation. Although most landed far from their
designated landing zones, they achieved all their objectives in the first 48
hours. This included ambushing German
convoys, cutting enemy communications, and preventing reinforcement from reaching
the beachhead. You get no impression of
this from the movie. Actually, the
unintended laughable moments do a disservice to the men who served. So fault I must. This is a bad movie and unpardonably
boring. Sincerity does not trump
tediousness.
GRADE
= F
