Sometimes it helps to step outside of the familiar. In "Deserter", my American perspective gets broadened by looking at an Arab country through the eyes of a young Brit placed within the French Foreign Legion. With my own country removed entirely from the scene, I thus start with no default "side" here. The movie does start off following the FFL, but of course expands before too long to show us (some of) the Arab side as well.I'd like to know, but don't know, how true to reality the movie is. Most of what we're shown seemed very plausible to me. A few bits did feel "Hollywoodized" but perhaps were reasonable distillations of multiple events.What made the biggest impression on me was the discomfort of Murray as he came face to face with the inexorable underlayment of the whole situation: that military occupation is fundamentally wrong because it is not consensual. That's a good lesson for everyone.I'm surprised this only has a 5.3. I wouldn't call it a great movie, but it's well done and involving and deserves a higher score.My biggest complaint is that the accents were hard for me to understand, especially near the beginning. With the mixture of different national origins of the characters and some of the dialog being in French with the rest in (mostly) French-accented English, a lot of the early lines were lost on me. I almost stopped watching after about 10 minutes due to this. I'm glad I didn't.

DESERTER is an excellent micro-budget film ($3.5 million apparently) which does an awful lot with very little. Based on Simon Murray's famous memoir "Legionnaire" - the film was retitled to avoid confusion with a JCVD film of the same name - it's about a jilted Englishman in the 1960s who joins the French Foreign Legion and fights with them in Algeria, before facing a moral crisis. It's suitably authentic in the details and mood of life in the Legion, although some of the props (tanks, trucks) are inaccurate. The tiny budget often works in the film's favour; the actors (who do very well) are the right age (early 20s) for once because older stars were too pricey; the battle scenes have a documentary vividness because they can't afford silly lenses or hyper-editing (the gasoline explosions are stupid though); and the story is short and sharp because there wasn't the money for unnecessary subplots. Generally it gives a good overview of the Algerian War, from a multitude of perspectives: an Englishman, the French military, the French colonists and the Arabs. Life in the FFL - the sun-scorched marches, the brutal punishments, the ferocious discipline, the primeval initiation ceremony, the intense camaraderie and the brutal if effective counter-insurgency tactics - is extremely well conveyed. Occasionally it threatens to veer into political correctness or melodrama but it always recovers in time. Overall, a small, good film on an interesting subject. I wish there were more like it.

three screenplay writers including the original author and director crafted this lukewarm screenplay. what we saw was a bunch of young men who came from all different regions or countries to blindly joined the french foreign legion, a mercenary-like commissioned army to deal with the Algeria uproar fighting France's colonization for independence. i have to say that all the young men who played the recruits of the french legion did great performances, their roles were very tough and rough, not an easy job to play those roles. but in the meantime, they looked not quite competent, especially the main character, the English young man who joined the force just because he got a broken heart from an unsuccessful romance in england. this young actor, although did a pretty nice performance, but at the same time, also a pretty bad cast. too youngish, too baby faced and also looked too unconvincingly weak. his best friend and comrade then became a turned coat who joined the opposition insurgent was a better cast but still not quite fit the role. the fighting scenes were brutal but not well directed and performed. if compare to similar historical background 'intimate enemy', 'incendis' and several other great ones, this 'deserter' would not even qualified as a good movie, just a lame, lukewarm movie that failed to connect the audiences or a viewer like me.

I liked this film immensely, it has very nice scenery in Morocco, and strong characterizations, and in this case the introduction of the love interest actually drives the story along and makes it even more compelling.Especially when the Legionnaires have to make a choice to side with the OAS the breakaway French military faction opposing deGaulle, this makes it fascinating! I thought the characters were well defined, and the film showed enough for us to get a true picture of Legion life: the brutal training, the marches, the NCOs, the officer class, the ceremonies, the skirmishes with the Arabs, the sense of loyalty.Also the film had enough money spent on it to make a convincing portrait of Morocco at this period of transition, you have the colonial French architecture, and the spectacular desert scenery! I recommend any Foreign Legion fans to buy this film and watch it again and again!