The Silent Army (2008)

excerpt, more at my location - According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, up to half of the world's child soldiers are based in Africa. In the end titles of the film Blood Diamond (2006) it is claimed that "there are still 200,000 child soldiers in Africa," so it's little surprise director Jean Van De Velde (All Stars, Wild Romance) felt the need to remind us of their plight with his latest film, The Silent Army.The Silent Army offers rich, authentic-looking settings and some striking visuals; however, gaping plot-holes and cartoonish characters soon frustrate, so viewers expecting anything other than volatile scenes of children being harmed will be sorely disappointed.

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

It's nice filmed, big budget, but rather spend it on poor people because, this movie was bad as hell. The leading role is approved to Marco Borsato, which is a good singer really, but he just can't act. If this was an American movie with a better plot it would have been a big hit. There are many reasons why this movie could have been better. But really, its just awful. You could watch it with a friend on DVD on a boring night, but i suggest rather to make a pizza or go to a bar.So whenever you are planning to go to this movie, i can just say, don't go! Dutch movies can be great. For example Zwartbook with Carice van Houten, who plays in the Valkyrie movie. This director can better find another job. For now, 1 star is already to many for this movie.

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.