Savior

Plot synopsis:
Joshua Rose (Dennis Quaid), a State Department Official on embassy duty in Paris, sees his wife (Nastassja Kinski) and son killed in a bombing by suspected Islamic terrorists. Immediately after the family funeral he storms into a nearby mosque and shoots several worshipers. His friend Peter (Stellan Skarsgård) is forced to shoot one of the survivors when the man tries to kill Rose, and in order to avoid arrest they join the French Foreign Legion, with Joshua taking the name Guy.
The film moves forward to the war in Bosnia where "Guy" and Peter are now fighting for the Bosnian Serbs, stationed on a bridge separating them and the Bosnian Muslims in a town. Guy mans a sniper post overlooking the bridge, and witnesses Peter's death when Peter drops his guard at a checkpoint and a young girl throws a grenade at him. Guy in turn shoots a boy crossing the bridge in pursuit of his goat.
Guy is then seen searching the Muslim side of the town following a ceasefire along with a Bosnian Serb soldier Goran (Sergej Trifunović). In one house they find an elderly Muslim woman who is confined to bed and shell-shocked and a dead woman. Guy also finds a sleeping baby who has been hidden in a wardrobe but does not inform Goran who hacks a finger off the old woman in order to steal her ring.
After they leave the house a helicopter attacks the town. As Goran takes cover Guy stays out in the open and returns to the house, but finds that both the child and the old lady have been killed by falling rubble. Later, Guy and Goran prepare for a prisoner exchange with the Bosnian Muslim forces. When they arrive at the exchange point one of the young Serbian women prisoners being exchanged, Vera (Nataša Ninković), is visibly pregnant because she was raped by the Muslim forces. Guy and Goran take her in Goran's car and they head towards her village.
In the car Goran is abusive towards Vera for becoming pregnant by a Bosnian Muslim Army soldier even though Guy points out that she was almost certainly raped. Goran eventually stops the car in a tunnel. He throws Vera out of the car and begins to kick her as she lies on the ground. The assault forces Vera into premature labor. As Goran prepares to shoot the soon-to-be-born child, Guy shoots and kills Goran. He then helps deliver the baby. When he shows Vera the child, a girl, she rejects it and attempts to shoot herself before Guy manages to stop her.
They continue to her village where she is rejected by her family due to the shame felt by her father. They leave the village, with Guy intending to head for a refugee camp where Vera and the baby would be looked after. Vera continues to reject the child and does not communicate with Guy. After being told by Goran's family that Goran's body has been found and that he was last seen in the company of Guy and Vera, Vera's father and brother head off in pursuit of them. They eventually catch up with them when they stop to get milk for the child. Guy is shot and injured, but Vera places herself between him and her father as he goes to kill him, and her father backs off and allows them to leave when Guy tells him that Goran intended to kill both Vera and the baby.
They briefly return to Vera's village to find it has been attacked, and have to watch from a distance as her family and other villagers are rounded up and led away by Bosnian Muslim fighters. Guy decides to head for the safety of the UN zone in Split on the Dalmatian Coast. On their way they stop and take refuge with an elderly Croatian man and his Serbian wife. The old man tells Guy "before the war, no difference [between Serbs and Croats], and now, stupid", pointing to his head to show madness.
After moving on they reach what they think is a relatively safe area. Vera leaves Guy and the child to rest in an abandoned and half-sunk boat on the edge of a lake while she goes to find a bus that will take them to Split. Vera is captured along with other civilians by soldiers of the Croatian Defence Council. The Croat soldiers take their prisoners to the waterfront where Guy is hiding in the boat. One soldier then proceeds to beat several to death with a sledgehammer, including Vera, as they stand in the water. The fighters shoot those that are left as Guy witnesses the slaughter from inside the boat but can do nothing without giving himself and the child away. He smothers the baby in order to keep her quiet as the soldiers prepare to leave. She stops breathing but returns to breathe after a while.
Guy eventually makes his way onto a bus that takes him and the baby to Split where he leaves Vera's baby in an unattended Red Cross vehicle and writes the name "Vera" on a paper before walking to a pier, throwing his rifle and scope in the water and collapsing on a bench. A woman who was on the bus with him approaches him, carrying the girl and offering help. When she asks if the baby is his, Guy replies that she is and the woman promises to take them both to a hospital.

Tags: romantic

Review:
I doubt, then, that many people would approach this film with any false expectations of what it will contain.That said, viewers should not come to this film for a political explanation of why and how the war happened - for that, it's probably best to read a few books.
This film does attempt to give a human explanation of how and why wars like this one happen and continue to happen, though.Inevitably, some have accused Savior of bias; though an American film, the director is a Serb, and it was filmed on location in Montenegro; with such emotive subject matter partiality would hardly be surprising.
He is ably matched by Natasja Nincovic's complicated, battered portrayal of a Serb woman - and not merely a 'rape victim' stereotype that we know from other films.There is a religious subtext for those who like looking for such things - plenty of Christ imagery, chiming nicely with the title.
His own conduct is difficult to stomach, but nonetheless presented as the actions of a human, not a monster.What Antonijevic's film does, then, is look at the line between those who have, and those who have not, become indifferent to the suffering of others - it is in this way that the perpetuation of war is explored.
Indeed, for those not very familiar with the details of the war in Bosnia, the practical anonymity of the different soldiers throughout the film will heighten the sense of War as something soldiers do to Civilians.People who respect and appreciate this film should steer clear of the recent Behind Enemy Lines however - it reuses fragments of the Lake scene in Savior to simplistically anti-Serb effect, completely bastardising the intent of the people who originally created those images.Nonetheless, despite what has been done to it Savior remains beautifully acted, tragic, mature film-making..
However he then finds himself in a bitter war with a woman and child that no one wants.I have seen this movie twice now and can find little to dislike about it, but also realise that it is not for a fun evening in with friends.
The film doesn't simply act out atrocities for us to watch but frames them within this story  however we know that nothing is made up or exaggerated in terms of the bigger picture.The film lacks any sort of traditional American cop-out (it's no spoiler to say that Guys wife and child don't turn out to be alive after all!), only the opening `this is why he's like this' 10 minutes are a little too neat and could have been dispensed with  I didn't need it to explain why he was dead inside, only that he had become it due to war  which was partly true.
Faces such as Skarsgård add interest, but I did wonder why he had bothered for such a short time on screen.Overall this is not a fun film to rent on Friday night but a bleak anti-war film that will leave you in no doubt that the conflict in Bosnia (and perhaps everywhere else) is of no value when compared to the enormous cost in terms of human life and suffering..
Quaid performs his part from top to bottom, which drains the viewer of emotion, making one actually process information that has previously just been news broadcast.A good mix of local and international filmaking skills also present what I would consider an accurate picture of the racial and religious groups depicted in the movie.
How wrong I was,Dennis Quaid gives a stunning performance of a good man struggling to understand a world of brutality and inhumanity.
I found it a true document about the war, and, in the end, I was not disturbed by the fact that it was a movie from a Serb director.
After watching this movie, you don't hate the Serbs, the Croatians or the Bosnians, you hate the war for the consequences on civilian people..
I was stumped at the video store - had basically narrowed the DVD search down to 2 - Sphere (yeah, I know..) and Savior, this interesting looking title on the bottom shelf.Thank goodness I chose this one.What a brilliant, gut-wrenching, agonising movie...Other comments have said it was a low budget job, but the DVD version I just saw didn't even make you think about the mechanics of the movie - just the characters and events that this film portrayed.The cinematics - beautiful scenery etc (to show that man really has no sense at all - he can be surrounded by some of the most amazingly beautiful surroundings and still turn the place to hell) and sound (the gunshots / ambient stuff etc were very well done) were all spot on..For the actual plot, the other comments posted are a lot more lucid than mine, so I won't bother trying to explain the premise of this flick.I really don't know what else to say - some of the scenes containing brutality were brilliant (in a really horrible way) - none of the usual hollywood (tm) bad guy finally gets it in the end type stuff - cliche - it really just showed how pointless these kinds of conflicts are.
I was after a throw away movie (should have rented sphere) and instead got this thing that I just cannot stop thinking about.Dennis Quaid was amazing in it, and the rest of the cast were excellent, too.And yes, I cryed like baby Vera..PS: I actually registered just so I could vote & comment on this movie...
The last 15 to 20 minutes are sure to move even the cold hearted so,I am surprised and saddened that there are still some folks here at the forum fighting over its anti/pro Muslim/Serbian credentials.There is no winner in any war - only despair & death and at times, a faint glimmer of hope.
This movie takes a serious look at war and it's effects on a soldier who has joined the foreign legion, a woman he meets, and an infant who enters their life.
I first saw this film when it was screened on the small screen by the BBC here in the UK a couple of years ago.When I saw it in the company of my then girlfriend, I wasn't aware of Oliver Stone's involvement and, frankly, I think that's for the good as I could quite easily have flipped channels having pre-judged it as YAHWF ("Yet Another Hollywood War Film").Fortunately, I stuck with it and it opened my eyes to a war that was, by and large, merely seen as an inconvenience to many would-be holidaymakers here in Britain.Whilst reported ad-infinitum by the mass media here, making the phrase "ethnic-cleansing" into an everyday term, it wasn't until I saw this film that I fully appreciated what this meant.It's a hard film that brought me a sense of remoteness, helplessness, futility and anger.There have been few other films I've seen that made caused me to weep (big, macho guy that I am ;-)), particularly those that are often mis-labelled as "war movies" -- "The Killing Fields" being another of this ilk -- when, in fact, they're really (if we're labelling things) human interest films that come about because of a war or conflict.Dennis Quaid is, to me, one of those actors who isn't hugely prolific in the projects he gets involved in and I actually found it difficult to think of other titles of his that I'd seen.
No one here is a good guy, in fact everyone is bad to a degree, especially when you understand who everyone is (a fact not readily understandable to the casual viewer).Like most films that deal with real human tragedy, it is hard to watch at times.
The movie shows that war in the former Yugoslavia was not black and white, i.e., the conflict was not one of good versus evil but rather that all sides - including Croats and Muslims - shared in the atrocities committed.The film lacks in fully understanding the ethnic peoples of the region, however it still is groundbreaking in its non-simplistic 'gray' portrayal of the war rather than other films that depict the combatants as 'good' or 'evil.'It is unfortunate that Savior was not made before 1995, while the Bosnian War was still being fought, it would have definitely helped to open viewers' eyes to the reality of the war..
Savior is one of the most intriguing movies that I have ever seen.The story deals with a man's journey in a foreign land where he meets a woman and plays a bigger role in her life than he'd expected.
He joins the foreign legion to overcome the grief caused by the loss of his family.Under special circumstances he meets Vera, a victim of the war who is pregnant at the time.He saves her and her baby from the hands of a cruel mercenary.The main character is surrounded by death and the atrocities of the war.
Stony-faced Dennis Quaid is excellent as ever as the emotionally-shut-off mercenary tiring of the pointless and unresolvable fighting in Bosnia, slowly allowing himself to feel again some years after the horrific death of his family when a woman and child inveigle themselves into his life.
i have seen many many movie in my life about war and human atrocities but i have never before seen anything like this it was a memorable experience and i have already recommended lots of my friends to watch the movie.
the good thing about this movie is that it show both sides of the story and really tells that is not religion, ethnicity but our own will which makes and destroys.this movie is a real eye opener, its one of those movies that really should be distributed for free just for the sake of humanity and i have personally already donated 2 copies of this to my nearest libraries, i highly recommend you watch it.
Quaid is then sent away to a foreign legion and winds up in the middle of the Bosnia War between Muslims and Serbs, and along the way caring for that pregnant woman who was treated so brutally.This is a very somber film, very depressing in spots, but worth one look.
It's probably Dennis Quaid's best performance yet and it made me wonder why he doesn't do more movies.
such pain, such rage, such unrelenting hatred against the humanity itself...Either way, the film is very powerful and it depicts only a small amount of the atrocities that took place during that war...
It's a war movie, it's a human condition movie, I couldn't decide, but If you want to know was it the war real stuff you should watch this film.
I recommend it for everybody who likes the war, cruel movies but with a final human feeling lesson..
For me, one of the best war movies.Shows a harsh reality that at the beginning war.Man loses his family, and understands the impact of the war, go in the hope that it will justify a lot of things ...
they were rejected, worse than worst enemy.The man which would justify the coolness, it helps her, and could not leave her.Saddest scene i've ever seen,her in the river,waiting to be murder by Croatian solider,singing to her child,and the laugh of child,that pretty smile,when it heard the voice of mother..I cried like a little baby...I love that scene,i love the et-no sound from movie...
A true and very scary movie showing the tragedies of the Balkan war, in a very realistic and surprising way.
``Savior`` is the best Antonijevic`s movie to date.It gives the audience a true and honest view of the Yugoslav civil war.
I was not surprised with the horrible scenes in the movie, since I've heard or seen something like that with my eyes, but the movie has very strong anti-war message, and it's also showing very clear that there were/are no "good" and "bad" guys in the Bosnia.
This is so far the third movie based from the Bosnian/Serb war, that I've seen.
Dennis Quaid did so well a job, I'd almost think this is the best movie of his career.
This tale of the Bosnian civil war brings the whole, strange (for Americans), savage and sordid truths about "ethnic cleansing" straight into your living room via the VCR.Dennis Quaid delivers the role of a lifetime as a former U.S. government agent driven mad by grief to attack innocent Muslim worshippers at a mosque, which leads to a 6-year stint in the French Foreign Legion.
Once free of his commitment to the Legion, he becomes a mercenary in Bosnia, where he continues his vengeance campaign against Muslims.But as Quaid finds out, his allies can be scummier than his foes; this is the setup of "Savior," wherein Quaid redeems his humanity to save a helpless baby, yet another victim of the nameless war.One thing that Roger Ebert doesn't mention: The guys with the hammers are Croats, not Serbs or Bosniaks (Muslims).
I particularly think that it IS the best film of his so END of story, Cinematography added with beautiful scenery creates a nice contrast.If you are into war movies such as (without any order)...apocalypse now, platoon, saving private Ryan, FMJ, thin red line, enemy at the gates, etc...then this is a definite go-go and will show a side none of the above show with this tint..
The immediate black and white moral decisions that people face in war are displayed clearly; if a mistake is made, you die, that's all there is to it; knowing when assistance cannot be given is a skill to be learned; and in the end you realise that people will do it all again, having learned nothing.After toying briefly in the beginning with political world comment, this film steers clear of further judgements and side taking and moves skillfully along a path of a true people story..
(It seems worth adding that she is also incredibly beautiful, one of the most haunted and haunting faces I've ever seen.) The tension between Quaid's character, for whose emergent humanity she feels as an intrusion on her grief, and this ravaged soul who struggles against her own decency, strength, and capacity for hope, are striking for the sparenesss of the way it's enacted, and are sufficiently memorable that even in the midst of the carnage, hate, and cruelty of a war that seems to originate in a collective pathology, the goodness of the these two people are what I will remember from this tragic, beautiful, honest movie..
Performances are even and Dennis Quaid manages to put across a man who having abandoned the human race finds it again amongst the sheer mindless horror of war.
Newcomer Natasa Ninkovic was superb and believeable as the 'Fallen Serb Woman" who finds her own redemption and Dennis Quaid was great as the mercenary who also finds his own redemption in saving the baby from a life of war, death and destruction.
Anyone who is interested in war films should go out and rent / buy this movie.
it is no doubtone of the best movie i have ever seen but it has a biased touch against the muslims that is only objectable thing in the movie.dennis quaid is very good in his role bit the real heroine of the movie who should get the oscar is the baby vera.hope u see it.
As this film is about two nations,that I think are very distant to the makers,I must say it was beautifully made and acted by an American lead Quaid(who was in Belgrade for premiere).To me this film was only too short,I think it would've been even better if it was a little longer and I mean before her death...This movie doesn't say who was the good,or the bad guy in that war,the both sides were the same,some of them were good,and some of them not.It's simple the film about human relations between two totally different people during the war.The war that had no point,like any other war..
It's truly an outstanding film that depicts the horrors faced by civilians in all wars, and how conflict and human suffering brings out both the best and worst in us.My wife is a Croatian citizen, and her family fled the country in the early 90's when the region first began to break apart, just hours away from being swept up into the war themselves.
I know there has been war films before but to see the brutal acts of war (rape,torture,cold blooded murder)and to think that these things happened only a few years ago and that fact that this has yet again happened in Europe.And the reason for all this terror "Religion".However there is another time and place for the politics of the film.The performances were brilliant.
there is a Serb bad guy but he looks like a ordinary student turned mad by war, aimed at protecting his land...So Savior is an excellent movie about the redemption of a man who, because he was inspired only by hate was out of humanity but perfectly adapted to a world without humanity.
This movie clearly shows the tragedy of the Balkan War. There are no "good" sides.
But perhaps the war itself was the savior in saving Quaid from his inhuman hate for Muslims..
This is the best movie of the serbian-bosnien war in Yugoslavija, and a great film of tragedy of inhumanity.
Dennis Quaid is great in a tough, but rewarding war film..
This description might make the film sound like a bit of a feel-good movie.
What I saw though didn't seem to be what I had expected.This pro Serb war movie had some very powerful scenes to say the least but that was just it, just scenes that didn't really in my opinion support the underlying plot which was thin but inspiring to a certain degree.The first part of the story seemed rushed and I don't think it fully established Dennis Quaid's character and his relationship with his family to justify his murderous rampage.