Savior (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Savior |
| Original title | Savior |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1998 |
| length | 99 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Predrag Antonijević |
| script | Robert Orr |
| production |
Oliver Stone , Janet Yang |
| music | David Robbins |
| camera | Ian Wilson |
| cut |
Ian Crafford , Gabriella Cristiani |
| occupation | |
| |
Savior (Alternative title: Savior - Soldier of Hell ) is an American drama directed by Predrag Antonijević from 1998 .
action
The family of the American soldier Joshua Rose is killed in a terrorist attack in Paris . Blind with anger, Rose developed a hatred of all Muslims and murdered several believers in a mosque. Then he gives up his name and goes with his friend from the US Army first to the Foreign Legion and later fights Muslims as a mercenary for the army of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia . Here he experiences the cruelty and futility of war when his friend is killed by a child with a hand grenade. He is also involved in a raid on a Muslim village during a truce; one of his mercenary colleagues cuts off an old woman's finger with a valuable ring.
During a prisoner exchange, Rose meets Vera, who is pregnant after being raped by a Muslim. When his Serbian mercenary colleague tries to kill her baby, Rose shoots him and takes the woman home. However, her family keeps her distance from her and the newborn. So Rose tries to make it clear to her that she should take the child anyway, and drives her to a refugee camp. On the journey, both of them are followed by Serbs who have found their comrade's body. After Vera has finally taken care of her child while on the run, Rose is shot and they have to flee in a different direction by boat.
When they split up to find a lift, Vera is captured by Croatians and, along with other prisoners, is brutally killed by the paramilitary fighters with a sledgehammer. Rose watches the execution from a hiding place, where he calms the child down. Since Vera knows that he can see her, she makes it clear to him shortly before her death that he should not intervene in order to at least save the child. Rose sets off alone with the child and finds a bus that will take him to Split .
There he hides the child in a Red Cross car and gets rid of his mercenary ID and weapon.
A woman who was on the bus finds the child and brings it back to him. When he claims to be the father, she gives him hope not to give up the child.
Reviews
Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on December 11, 1998 that the film was a "brutally honest war film" . Ebert quoted François Truffaut , who once wondered whether it was possible to make a real anti-war film, since war films are fundamentally exciting and the viewer identifies with one of the sides. This “not subtle” film is a real anti-war film. He reminded us that morality is not an innate behavioral pattern of people, but that sometimes the elbow mentality comes to the fore ( “human nature does not invitably take us upward to higher moral ground, but sometimes drags us down to our dog-eat-dog beginnings " ).
Kevin Thomas wrote in the Los Angeles Times on November 20, 1998 that Dennis Quaid showed acting maturity in this film. He makes the otherwise "unbearable" film bearable.
The lexicon of international films wrote that the film was about "the war and its dehumanizing consequences" , but that it addressed "the viewer's sentiment" rather than making the viewer think. It is a "superficial and conventional attempt at an anti-war film, the laudable intent of which is undisputed, but which fails because of the uninspired implementation because of its own concerns" .
Awards
In 1998 Nataša Ninković won an award for Best Actress at the Russian Sochi International Film Festival . The film won the 1999 Political Film Society Award for Peace .
background
The film was shot in Montenegro and Montreal . Its production amounted to an estimated 10 million US dollars . The film was shown in individual cinemas in the USA, grossing around 13,000 US dollars.
Specialty
Maria Rose, played by Nastassja Kinski, falls victim to the Islamist attack in the opening scene of the film before the opening credits; Nevertheless, shortly afterwards Nastassja Kinski is mentioned in the opening credits as the main role, although she does not appear once more in the further course of the film.
Web links
- Savior in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Savior at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Film review retro-film.info