I hate war movies that have to show war is hell. Even if the general public has never experienced war, most of the educated public over the age of 15 realizes that war is hell. For an example of bad war movies please see The Thin Red Line. That being said, I happen to love this movie, No Man's Land. It is one of my favorite foreign films and is just plain outstanding.

The story revolves around three soldiers, two Bosnians and one Serbian, trapped in a trench between the two lines. One Bosnian is lying on a mine that when activated will bounce in the air and explode killing anything and everything in a 20 foot radius. The other two soldiers are holding each other hostage while they try to figure out what to do. The best part of the movie is when the U.N. Peacekeeping force gets involved. This, I feel, is the main thrust of the movie. The U.N. soldiers are portrayed as being fully unable to handle this situation as well as any situation presented to them in the Bosnian conflict. Why send troops to a conflict, when they are not fighting either side and can not keep the two sides from fighting? Of course this isn't the first conflict where the UN could not solve anything, there's Korea, Rwanda, and Somalia to name a few.

The acting is good, even though you have to read what they are saying for the most part. The film is in Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles, or French or Spanish if you desire. The films main actors are Bosnian- Branko Djuric, and Croatian-Rene Bitorajac. Maybe they lived through this and maybe they didn't, there acting resumes show that they were not acting between 1991 and 1995, the height of the war. This cast, in an effort to represent the UN's interest, is international. The French soldier, Sgt. Marchand, Georges Siatidis, is Belgian. The only actor that most of the Americans might recognize is the British soldier in command, Soft, played by Simon Callow, who was in Ace Ventura-When Nature Calls. The cast overall does a fine job.

The movie won the 2002 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Picture, the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay, and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Picture. This movie is great, and with the United States trouble with the United Nations and how inept they can be at stopping true conflict, this movie should be watched by all Americans, and see why we can't depend on the U.N. for any kind of military action or prevention.

Brian - the Naked Gun