Israel as portrayed in this movie (and not inaccurately, really) is a community where people feel great solidarity with one another. The loners after whom the movie is named are boys who are enthusiastic about earning an honorable place in society but have made mistakes, have become excluded, and now want nothing more than to get back in. Even when they take hostages, they believe they can strike a deal that the other side will honor because they believe so deeply in the social contract. The commander of the rescue action, like some benign and pragmatic Shakespearean king, wastes no time blaming anyone but wants only to restore order as gently but decisively as possible. The hostage takers-- one more dominant and daring, the other a friend and follower much like in Dog Day Afternoon-- are obviously more of a threat to themselves than to anyone else, and we sympathize with their hopeless campaign while dreading the violent turn it might take.

Based on a true story, The Loners is set in a military prison in northern Israel in 1997. Two Russian speaking immigrant soldiers have been accused of treason and supplying military weapons to Hamas. The pair are "loners", living in Israel without family. They are sent to jail and are set to be tried as civilians. Their requests for an appeal hearing and to be tried by a military court are denied, and the pair are constantly persecuted and beaten. Glory (Sasha Avshalom Agrounov) aggressively pursues his demands, and in frustration eventually organizes a mutiny within the prison. Along with the more nervous Sasha (Anton Ostrovski), who is the son of a Russian general, they take a couple of hostages. What follows is a tense stand off. However, as the siege wears on we begin to learn the truth about what happened, and how Sasha lost his rifle under embarrassing circumstances.The Loners is the second feature from writer/director Renen Schorr (Late Summer Blues), and is proficiently directed. Schorr deliberately opens the action out so that the film doesn't become too claustrophobic, as is often the case with prison movies. The film explores themes of isolation, honour, injustice, and Schorr emphasizes the different personalities of the two central characters. The film is also critical of Israel's policy of compulsory military service, and addresses the angst and conflicted multi-culturalism of a country that sometimes seems at war with itself.

I have seen 'HaBodedim' (The Loners) in a pre-screening at the cinematheque in my city. Hard to believe that the director of this film Renen Schorr is only at his second long feature film, and that more then two decades passed since his first film 'Blues LaHofesh Hagadol' (Blues to the Great Vacation also translated un English as Late Summer Blues) was received with almost universal acclaims but also with no little controversy. Rightly so, as the director was focusing in that film on the relation between the young generation and the military establishment in an elegiacal manner, from the perspective of the young soon-to-be-soldiers, and far from the heroic approach that many of the Israelis like to take when it comes to dealing with the subject of the military service. (in the meantime Schorr has built one of the best cinema schools in Israel, a school of international fame which is behind some of the most successful young directors who received international acclaim lately) To a certain extent 'The Loners' continues the same theme, but adds to it another dimension. The heroes of the film are two lone soldiers, belonging to a category of young people who came to Israel mostly from the countries in the former Soviet Union, pushed by adventure, idealism, lack of maturity or a combination of the three in any dose you wish. Their fate is to fight in order to prove themselves and be better then the rest of the soldiers in a society they dream to integrate within but which is not always ready to accept them, or whose acceptance is according to its own rules. In the process the two heroes make mistakes, they fail, they get in trouble, and they land in a military prison condemned (unjustly) for one of the biggest crimes in the military code - selling arms to the enemy, arms which are used in a terror attack against innocent civilians.Much of the first part of the film looks not too different than the usual prison genre movies, a well made one. But the film tries to say much more. As their requests for an appeal are denied, and in order to save their honor, the trouble maker of the two devices a plan to overpower the guards in their building and take them as hostages. They now will get the whole attention of the system and eventually will get their honor problem solved, but at what price. We learn at the end of the film that the treason charges were eventually dropped (the film is based on a true story) but the time spent in jail was increased, as they where now charged with rebellion and hostage taking. In a society where indifference becomes the rule, and violence the preferred way of solving conflicts it is only by violence that problems can be solved, and the solution is not always a happy end.There are a lot of good things to be said about how this film looks and feels. The characters are well built and differentiated, and there is almost no false note, no conventionalism, no sentimentalism. The dialogs are well-written and contribute to the feeling of credibility. The setting is not spectacular, but this is what you would expect a military prison to look like - realistic and straight-forward camera work avoids any complication. Acting is solid.I expect this film to create a certain level of controversy, but maybe less then the first film of Schorr. Amazingly maybe, as this is a much more violent and tough film, sending quite disturbing messages about the relations between soldiers and army and within the army, between the new immigrants and the rest of the society. Yet, we got accustomed with this level and tone of cinema debate - it's a long way the Israeli film and Israeli society walked through in all these years.