Warriors (2003)

Very well executed

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Beautiful, moving film.

A Brilliant Conflict

If you do a movie about a modern conflict like Serbia/Kosovo, you got to have some kind of similarity between the events that really took place and the fiction.You can't just have a KFOR platoon killed/Raped if nothing like this has ever taken place, which to my knowledge it has not.If you wanna go down that road then why not Vampires n' Aliens too? It would have been much braver if they had shown the complete feeling of paralysis that the UN leadership had imposed on it's troops which were forced to witness genocide and not allowed to pick up their guns to stop it, exploring the impossibility of staying neutral in armed conflict now that would have been interesting.Im left with a feeling that many people will be left a little bit dumber after watching this movie.

The conflict in Kossovo serves as backdrop for this Spanish film. Directed by Daniel Calparsoro, whose "Asfalto" we recently saw, is an intense film that takes the viewer behind the horrible war in that part of Europe. How similar is the movie in comparison to the real events, we can't say, for sure.We are presented with a group of Spanish soldiers that are sent to restore electric power to a small town. As the group approaches the Serbian border, they encounter an unexpected turn of events as they are attacked by one of the factions and end up straying into a no man's land where no one is supposed to enter. The soldiers are faced with the horrors of a war they were just supposed to stay away from.Vidal, the daring soldier, is instrumental for getting them back in track after the Lt. Alonso suffers what appears to be a shock. Alonso turns out to show all signs of a coward when he is captured. It's only Vidal who at the start appears to be the one that wants to be sent home in order to avoid any confrontation; this young man proves to be a natural born leader who finds a way to get back after experiencing some tense moments in that forbidden zone.The best thing in the film is Eloy Azorin, a talented young actor who is perfect for the role of Vidal. Eduardo Noriega, an actor who has done better in other films, is quite a puzzle as the cowardly lieutenant. Ruben Ochandiano, Carla Perez and Jordi Vilches are seen as part of the platoon of Spanish soldiers.Daniel Calparsoro seems to be getting better and better all the time.

We often watch world conflicts on TV and think they could never occur in our own country: we're too civilized to surrender ourselves to such brutal behaviour. This thought is one of many that haunts a group of Spanish peacekeepers in the embattled Serbian province of Kosovo. The troops represent a spectrum of personalities: the pacifist, the trigger happy, the professional soldier, the UN translator with conflicting loyalties, the soldier who wants no part of somebody else's conflict and who just wants to go home. As they undertake their duties - rebuilding a Church, restoring electricity to a town - the conflict becomes their reality. They are swept into it, and far from being the placid observers & peacekeepers they think they ought to be, they now must fight for their own survival. They slowly begin to lose that veneer of civilization that they though only they possessed, the same patina these embattled locals once had, but lost long ago. The director based many of the stories on actual events as told to him by Spanish soldiers returning from the region. It is filmed in a very gripping and heavy way - drawing you into it all, along with the lost soldiers. It drew great acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival, 2002. For those who followed (or survived) the events of the last decade in the Balkans, it is a stark and honest portrayal that will leave many re-thinking the versions they may have formulated in their own minds, reading newspapers and watching TV, comfortable, in their own very civilized, and very insular, homes

I caught this on Spanish-language HBO the other night and was captured by its style, tension, and brilliantly executed character development. The pacing is deliberate and, at times, frenetic. The tragedy of the "fog of war" in which these Spanish peacekeepers are lost is palatible. If you liked "Saving Private Ryan", "The Big Red One" and "Enemy at the Gates", you'll love "Guerreros".