Deserter Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Deserter Blu-ray Movie Review

A Different Kind of Legionnaire's Disease

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 30, 2012

Deserter is a 2002 British film that was originally titled Simon: An English Legionnaire. IMDb says it was released in the U.S., but Box Office Mojo has no record of it, and the MPAA hasn't rated it. The film is based on the memoir of Simon Murray, an Englishman who served in the French Foreign Legion in Algeria during the troubled time when the former colony became an independent nation. Murray was an executive producer of the film and is portrayed by British actor Paul Fox, but you'll have to look hard to find Fox's name or likeness on the Blu-ray and DVD covers. The name and image that feature prominently are those of co-star Tom Hardy, billed as "The Star of The Dark Knight Rises and Inception"—which should tell you everything there is to know is about why this obscure trifle is being released now.

Is it worth your time? It has its moments. The film was shot on location in Morocco, and the landscape lends it a dramatic scale, regardless of the script's shortcomings. Hardy may not be the star, but his role is substantial, and even though he was only at the beginning of his screen career, he already had the indefinable presence that makes a movie actor compelling. Other supporting cast, including Yorick van Wageningen (now much better known since his turn as the odious Bjurman in David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Félicité Du Jeu (who has since appeared in Casino Royale and Munich) bring depth and conviction to otherwise underwritten roles. Ultimately, the film doesn't add up to much, but it may whet the appetite for more substantial fare dealing with the same material (starting with The Battle of Algiers).

Murray (Fox) narrates the film in prose that is more atmospheric than enlightening. In 1960, wearing proper business attire, he marches into a European office of the Foreign Legion (presumably in London, but the city is not identified) and signs away the next five years of his life. His reasons are never fully explained, and Murray states at the outset that he doesn't know why, thereby establishing a vagueness to the central character that handicaps the story from the outset. There are references to a troubled relationship with a woman and to an absent father whom Murray romanticized in his imagination as some sort of soldier of fortune. But Murray doesn't seem to be running from anything, and whenever he hears from family or friends, he experiences intense homesickness. He's obedient to authority, helpful to his fellow recruits, sympathetic alike to both the colonized Arabs and their colonial occupiers—in short, the very essence of the stereotypical Englishman who fears giving offense above all other things. Fox has been criticized by posters at AmazonUK for giving a "wooden" performance, but what else can an actor do with a character who has been written as a sales clerk in a soldier's uniform?

When Murray arrives in Algeria for the Legion's equivalent of basic training, the reality is anything but romantic. Under Lt. Thibault (Christian Mulot), Corporal Muller (Dugald Bruce Lockhart) and Sgt. Crepelli (Enzo Cilenti), the recruits are subjected to brutal physical and mental abuse (worse even than the marine training in Full Metal Jacket). Murray makes a friend, though, who helps him survive: Pascal Dupont (Hardy), apparently a Frenchman, who therefore should be ineligible to serve in the Foreign Legion. As Murray will eventually realize, however, Dupont isn't strictly French; he's a so-called pied-noir, a French Algerian, and his presence in the Foreign Legion has a distinct purpose that Murray should have suspected all along if he weren't so absorbed in being the perfect Englishman abroad.

Much of Deserter is loosely episodic, as Murray and his fellow trainees bond, clash and struggle through the various stages of training. As inevitably occurs in stories of this kind, one recruit buckles under the pressure and makes a break for freedom, with dire consequences for both himself and the entire company. But in a narrative jump that is typical of Deserter's haphazard style, that incident abruptly ends, and we skip forward into the middle of an unrelated training exercise, in which Murray, Dupont and another soldier are playing the quarry in a game of seek and evade.

Eventually the recruits progress to the point where they begin active duty seeking to crush the growing Arab rebellion against continued French occupation. They come under fire, lose comrades and learn what it means to kill an enemy (which, for some, is no big deal, and for others, is a moral dilemma). They're also allowed leave, and Murray has the opportunity to play tourist in the neighboring city. There, Dupont introduces him to Nicole (Du Jeu), the cousin of the proprietor of a nightclub. A devoted pied-noir who believes that Algeria rightly belongs to the French, Nicole shows Murray her favorites places. They become involved, even though Murray, himself a child of a dying empire, can't share Nicole's faith in France's ability to hold onto Algeria. Besides, he finds himself entranced by the beauties of Arab culture, even though he doesn't understand it. You have to wonder whether, at some level, Murray knows he's a walking contradiction, flitting about the Arab quarter admiring the architecture and sitting in on Muslim prayer ceremonies one day, then returning to duty hunting down rebels fighting for Algerian independence the next.

The single best sequence in Deserter occurs near the end when French President de Gaulle accedes to Algeria's demands for independence. For a short time, there is the threat of a coup, and the Legion is ordered to seize control of the airport and repel the French military. It is at this point that loyalties are tested and true allegiances revealed.

Deserter Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Inception Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 (1.86, to be precise), although IMDb claims that Deserter's original aspect ratio is 2.35:1. I have been unable to confirm IMDb's information anywhere, and certainly nothing in the film leapt out to suggest altered or cropped compositions. IMDb's aspect ratio listings are frequently wrong, and its "technical specs" section for Deserter is conspicuously incomplete. In the absence of other authority, I will assume that the AR on the Blu-ray is accurate. (If any reader has additional information, please send me a message.)

It appears from the film's credits that Deserter was shot with Panavision hi-definition cameras and completed on a digital intermediate by the EFILM division of Deluxe Laboratories. This is consistent with the film's appearance on Blu-ray, which, with minor exceptions, is clean, detailed, colorful without bleeding or oversaturation and particularly strong at capturing the deep blacks of night scenes. The exceptions are the film's earliest sequences, before Murray begins his basic training. These scenes have a more film-like texture, as if they were either shot on film and harmonized with the HD footage or manipulated in post to add "texture" to their appearance. Either way, the appearance changes at about the point the recruits have their hair shaved off and become truly part of the Legion.

Deserter Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Consistent with its usual practice, Inception Media has provided a DVD-quality DD 5.1 track at 448 kbps. However, the track is so modest in its aspirations that the lack of lossless encoding is hardly fatal. There is almost nothing in the way of surround activity, even during battle scenes, nor do those scenes (or any others) challenge a sound system's bass extension. Dialogue is clear, and the largely forgettable score by Debbie Wiseman remains very much in the background. Like its presentation on Blu-ray, the audio track is adequate and nothing more.

Deserter Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The sole extra is a trailer that was obviously created for this video release and not for the original theatrical release. It opens with the Inception Media logo and showcases both Tom Hardy and Yorick van Wageningen without even mentioning Paul Fox, who is the film's star.

Deserter Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I'm not recommending Deserter, but if anything in the review or the screenshots intrigues you, the Blu-ray will provide a technically acceptable viewing experience. Inception Media is a no-frills publisher, but when one considers the deplorable treatment given to some A-list titles by major studios like Disney, a competent no-frills approach looks pretty good by comparison.