Female Agents

2008
6.7| 1h57m| en| More Info
Released: 08 February 2008 Released
Producted By: TF1 Films Production
Country: France
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

May 1944, a group of French servicewomen and resistance fighters are enlisted into the British Special Operations Executive commando group under the command of Louise Desfontaines and her brother Pierre. Their mission, to rescue a British army geologist caught reconnoitering the beaches at Normandy.

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Reviews

Interesteg What makes it different from others?
Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
nicholls_les Sophie Marceau leads an excellent cast in this gripping movie.Based on true events it begins in 1944, a group of French servicewomen and resistance fighters are enlisted into the British Special Operations Executive commando group under the command of Louise Desfontaines and her brother Pierre.Their mission, to rescue a British army geologist caught reconnoitering the beaches at Normandy, and to kill a German SS colonel who is close to figuring out the imminent secret of D-Day, proves to be emotional and brutal.The film moves at a good pace and is so well acted you feel for the characters.
metrobiz (French with English subtitles on Netflix)An excellent WW2 French resistance film based on a real life highly decorated French heroine who died in 2004 at age 98. Marceau portrays a woman with and on a deadly mission with selected other women not to seduce but to kill certain Germans in prep for D-Day. Marceau plays well her roles as sniper &/or assassin and team leader with a commanding yet understated performance. There's more to Marceau than has been seen - and probably more yet with the right Direction.Without showing everything about WW2 and German criminality, the film is well cast, directed, scored, and photographed. What a time it was ...
Claudio Carvalho In 1944, in London, Lieutenant Pierre Desfontaines (Julien Boisselier) assigns his sister Louise Desfontaines (Sophie Marceau) to convince three other women to form a five-woman task force under his command to rescue a British geologist from a German hospital in the countryside of France. The geologist was assigned by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster (Colin David Reese) in a reconnaissance mission of the soil of the beaches at Normandy for the D-Day and had been captured by the Germans. Louise and Pierre force the whore Jeanne Faussier (Julie Depardieu) that is imprisoned for murdering her pimp; the explosives expert Gaëlle Lemenech (Déborah François) that misses action; and the former dancer and fiancé of Colonel Karl Heindrich (Moritz Bleibtreu), Suzy Desprez (Marie Gillain) using blackmail and unethical methods to fly to France and join the Italian agent Maria Luzzato (Maya Sansa) in the assignment. They are well-succeeded but when they deliver the geologist to the British airplane, Pierre betrays the group and does not allow the women to fly back to London. He forces them to travel to Paris to kill Colonel Heindrich that suspects that the landing of the allied forces will be through the Normandy, in a dangerous mission. "Les Femmes de l'Ombre" is a sort of French Inglorious "Female" Bastards. The plot recalls the 1978 Italian film "Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato" a.k.a. "Inglorious Bastards", with three rogue women assigned to a very dangerous mission in occupied France. The plot is absurd but entertains, with the women having one-day training and parachuting in the night and attacking a German hospital full of soldiers in a well-synchronized operation. The characters are not well-developed and inconsistent, and Louise is a nurse and a sniper; Jeanne is a selfish whore capable to self-sacrifice for a cause; Liliane hates Heindrich, but when she sees him, she changes; Gaëlle is expert in explosives and absolutely unsuitable for the second mission. The greatest problem in this film is the reference that it is based on a true story. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Contratadas para Matar" ("Hired to Kill")
three-m Films abound regarding arguably the greatest tragedy of mankind--World War II--and so many focus on the heroic sacrifices of men. What makes "Les Femmes de L'ombre" shine is that it features the typically unsung contributors to the war effort--the heroines who shared the same audacity and love of country and liberty as the men.Aside from its cast of four gorgeous French women (and an equally delightful Italian), it features a simple, but clever agenda--the actions of a cell of saboteurs and assassins working for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in occupied France. There are no fantastic stories here--no plots to kill Hitler or to sabotage atomic research. Instead, the story narrows its focus to the extraordinary efforts to keep secret the particulars of the inevitable invasion of the European continent by the Allies. This is no small order, and there is much suffering in keeping what must remain secret.The emotions in the film are well played by the actors and actresses. During the few brutal, but necessary scenes, the cries of anguish and pain are real and powerfully emotive. Louise (Sophie Marceau) is convincing as a vengeful widow who works alongside her dedicated brother, Pierre (Julien Boisselier). Jeanne (Julie Depardieu, daughter of the famous French actor Gerard Depardieu) plays a callous whore motivated at first by remission of her prison sentence, then by money, then by revenge. Gaëlle (Déborah François) portrays the naïve, religious girl who is seemingly the only true French patriot of the group. Maria (Maya Sansa) is a driven, Italian Jew whose family met its fate in a concentration camp. The most reluctant member is the lovely Suzy (Marie Gillain), whose questionable past allied her with the most unlikely of characters, Colonel Heindrich (Moritz Bleibtreu) of the Wehrmacht and the film's major antagonist. Unexpected support comes from local profiteer, Eddy (Vincent Rottiers), whose connection to Colonel Heindrich enables the saboteurs to get close to him to fulfill their mission.If there's a noticeable weakness to the film, it is Bleibtreu cast as a Nazi colonel. He's neither evil nor intimidating. He lacks the sinister persona of Colonel Landa (Christoph Waltz) of "Inglourious Basterds," a decidedly less serious film of the genre. Where Colonel Heindrich should have been clever and cruel, his performance instead is wooden and uninspiring. Bleibtreu may be a little out of his realm in a role so serious.Les Femmes de L'ombre is a solid contribution to the WWII films of the last decade. I hope it inspires more stories of the Resistance to be told with attention to the incredible sacrifices and dedication of normal people confronted with the horrors of Nazism.