Leofwine_draca
THE SILENT ARMY is a Dutch film looking at the plight of child soldiers fighting for warlords in sub-Saharan Africa. The film humanises the story by having as its central protagonist a white man desperately hunting for the kidnapped son of a friend who has been taken by a notorious general and who is now a ruthlessly cold-blooded killer.The film I can best compare this with is JOHNNY MAD DOG, a Liberian effort which had greater authenticity and realism but hardly any kind of story. Thus THE SILENT ARMY is the better picture, even though the story is spoilt a little by the low budget; some of the moments are rather cheesy (such as a CGI explosion) which is a pity given the grittiness seen elsewhere in the story.The language is a mixture of English and Dutch. The acting is generally authentic and compelling enough to keep you watching. The film is violent and harrowing without ever being disgustingly graphic. The actor who played the warlord made the film for me with his completely chilling and efficient performance devoid of emotion and feeling. It's a film worth watching if you can handle the subject matter.
Pascal Zinken (LazySod)
A Dutch guy runs a restaurant in Uganda. He lives there together with his young son and their life isn't quite all that - he suffers from the trauma of having lost his wife and the political stability in the country isn't quite right either. When things go from bad to worse he's forced to do something about it.I guess the story could be worse. It is pretty standard, but nothing too bad. What makes this film bad is the fact that one of the main players is in his daily life a singer/entertainer (and a successful one at that), but he's not an actor. Most of the scenes he's staring into the camera much like a rabbit stares into the headlights of a car just before being run over. The other actors in the film do a better job, but the irritation of having one bad main character is so bad that their good work is overshadowed by his bad work.As a political message this film brings too much action, too much heroism. It might have left a deeper impact (on me at least) if it had not tried to be an action film. Then the real painful truth behind it all might have dawned some better, but not now. Now it's once seen, twice forgotten.4 out of 10 toe curling bad acted scenes
Bastiaan Rook
I ain't a fan from marco borsato and went to see this movie with a bunch of people who agree on the same point. We saw the trailer and start laughing when marco borsato tried to act and running around with a ak-47. It looks ridiculous. But the movie was sooooo bad. Badly written, a lot of useless shots, AND THE SO CALLED ACTING FROM THET CRAPPY SINGER MARCO BORSATO. We laughed most of the time when he's in the screen, because the way how he acted. Sometimes he looked when he had to look shocked, it looked like he didn't want to pas a wet fart. "spoiler" the funniest thing was how he talked about the bad guy's favourite desert and that marco had his photo in his wallet.Very bad. We went to see it, to see if it was a awful movie with a awful actor/artist.
Paul
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.
AD
