Saints and Sinners : The Void

Based on true events, a tank crew are given the order to clear a small pocket of resistance at the tail end of the war but this becomes far harder than originally expected. The two tanks travel blind to the point of the resistance, unaware of an ambush that has killed all but two soldiers, a British officer and a black American former tank operator. They must all join together to destroy three Panzer tanks and stop the resistance killing anymore soldiers.

What happens when you have watched a truck load of Italian Warsplotation films and 60s war movies in your youth and loved them, then come to a series that is rehashing them in your later life? Well you have five emotions. Firstly it makes you happy a little and you begin to think about all those great movies you watched and how this film is kind of ripping them off. Films like Where Eagles dare and Inglorious Bastards (the Italian one) and yes I do know this is actually jumping on the back of the success of Band of brothers. Then the second emotion is that it makes you relieved that the film isn't terrible and destroying all those great memories. that the film instead is narrating a passable story, one that tells you a little bit of real history (horrid racist treatment of brave black soldiers) and doing it in an entertaining way.

The third is that it makes you nostalgic, you recall other great films like The Defiant ones for instance. A film that plays off two characters that hate each other and tells you there story with a non nonsense attitude. This film doesn't really do that but it does give you some exposition of the lead characters and shaped more than just one dimensional people. The fourth emotion is that of honesty, it makes you focus on the film making an effects in the piece. These are practical and limited in scope and execution but are very well done and do not pull you out of the moments of action. They do however prove that technically this film would have been visually superb with another 5 million dollars pumped into it.

The fifth and final emotion was doubt, That is to say I doubted I would watch it again if I bought the DVD. The film is not a mess or terrible, it is just not that great and has nothing really of weight to take me back to it a second, third or more times but if you want a film for a Saturday night at home, than this is your man.

So it made me Happy, Relieved, Nostalgic, Honest and Doubt.... Good Job I am a Catholic otherwise I would be in trouble now.... better run to confession!