The Silent Army (2008)

Disturbing yet enthralling

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

A Brilliant Conflict

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This is one of the most underestimated movies i have ever seen, people go to this movie prejudged as hell! No matter what Marco would have done they would all voted an 1 anyway, they don't recognize acting skills when they see it.. Marco Borsato did a good job in this movie, it was his first movie even! This movie is really worth going to, a Must-see and everyone of these lame people who voted a 1 and saying that this movie failed, they fell in Marco Borsatos trap! Haha, Marco Borsato used his popularity to get people to go see this movie and FOCUS those people's attention on the whole of children soldier subject, and when you look at this movie you will get focused on that subject trust me! So all the people who say this movie didn't work and went to it to watch it! The movie surely worked on them! They went there, not cause it would gonna be a great movie, not cause the subject attracts them BUT BECAUSE MARCO BORSATO PLAYED IN IT! they totally fell in the "attract-attention-from-people-trap" and Marco even made this a good movie, double win for Marco! 2-0

Despite the reviews (all of them were bad) I wanted to see this, just to see 'how bad, bad writing can be'. It delivered and went to the limit.How can a producer or even a director with some credit to his name ever cast Marco Borsato in this B-movie? He may be a nice singer, but that doesn't make him an actor as this movie painfully demonstrates. His personal involvement in the charity WarChild is noble, but this very long advertisement for this organization is a disgrace.The acting was non-existent, the story unbelievable, the action scenes right out of any Ed Wood Jr-movie. (That might read as a compliment but it isn't.) I truly had a really hard time staying seated, specially with so many people around me leaving the theater.

The intention is noble. And for every kind of movie there is an audience. Yet it is not something you just do. Even if you have a lot of budget or a star cast, a film consists of many pillars with a mission to have all the same height on the film to contribute. A film is as good as the lowest pillar. With an overkill of crane-shots and dramatic music decorated with subtle lighting you're far from finished. These are just tricks when the rest lack. Something that happens too often in Dutch movies. The sober, subtle, modest movies are the ones that gets you and not detract from the story. Sure! There will be a public for this kind of movie, but certainly not the people who love movies and know what makes a movie worth watching. Oh yeah... Borsato as an actor? Seems not only unwise and striking. When one seriously want to bring a message it's not a wise decision to experiment with the cast. In that case you play save and for the cause!

First of all; the behavior of Marco Borsato is very rookies and secondly you can save time when you watch a Warchild ad, because this movie is just one huge Warchild advert.All the effort of showing the Warchild (a NGO) case is really annoying and this is a bad ego trip of Marco Borsato Borsato is the only hero of the movie and the Africans all seem to be war victims or war criminals and nothing else. If a naive cook from Europe becomes a action "hero" in the way that it has being filmed it looks like a nice piece of imperialism.The subject of child soldiers has already been told and filmed hundreds of times and this movie is not a good way to show the problem, because its just a personal ego trip of those who made it.