Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Leofwine_draca For the first two thirds of the running time, this is an unremarkable love story-cum-western, interspersed with some rather bloody scenes of action and death which are rather surprising for the time in which this film was released. The drama is slow-paced and takes a rather long time to unfold; most of the running time is taken up with characterisation between the two central protagonists. The first is Cresta, a woman (but definitely not a lady) with bad habits, a foul tongue, and a love of the Native American Indians, which is not shared by her companion, a young, jingoistic soldier by the name of Honus Gent. The two young actors taking the lead roles, Candice Bergen and Peter Strauss, put in strong roles and in part make the viewing experience worthwhile.Although the pacing is slow, the script is witty and offers some nice wordplay between the two leads as their initial hostility turns to friendship and eventually something more. Plus, Ralph Nelson makes great use of the untamed American landscape, which is nicely shot, and there's another oddball character performance from Donald Pleasence playing a gun trader. Then all of a sudden, the film's unforgettable climax changes track as it depicts the wholesale slaughter of an Indian village by the American troops; suddenly it becomes deadly serious and often hard to watch. The gore effects are horrific and in-your-face and at this point, the true carnage and bloodshed of warfare is portrayed with guts, unlike anything ever seen before by the viewing public at the time of release. Since then, advances in special effects have resulted in far gorier films, but few share the disturbing realism of this movie's climax, which itself is based on the true story of the Sand Creek Massacre by Colorado soldiers led by one Colonel Chivington. Not a great movie, but perhaps one to remember, and a story with a moral is always one worth watching.

Neil Welch I saw Soldier Blue several times at the cinema when it first came out, covered in notoriety, and have watched it a number of times since.The story is simple. A cavalry detail is wiped out by Indians. The only survivors are cavalryman Honus Gant (Peter Strauss) and "rescued" (from Indians) Cresta Maribel Lee (Candice Bergen). As they trek back to civilisation, encountering further Indians as well as creepy gunrunner Isaac Q Cumber (geddit?) (Donald Pleasance), they argue because Cresta seeks to challenge Honus' preconceptions of the Indians as murderous savages and, gradually, fall in love. When they finally reach the "civilisation" of a forward army camp, they are just in time to witness the horrific slaughter of a peaceful Indian settlement by the cavalry, making it clear to Honus (and the audience) that not only was the savagery far from one-sided, in the cavalry's case it was backed up by superior weaponry.The central section of the film, when Honus and Cresta are wandering through the wilderness enduring trials and falling in love, is thoughtful, eventful, gentle and exciting. But the raison d'etre of this movie - stated, if obliquely, in Buffy St Marie's opening theme song - is the massacre at the end, which is genuinely horrific (if rather dated in terms of special effects).The opening attack is set in order to align the audience's sympathies with Honus, so that we travel on the same journey as him, starting by regarding the Indians as murderous barbarians, and ending up forced to confront the idea that maybe it is we who are barbaric.Peter Strauss and Candice Bergen both give perhaps their best performances ever.An over-sensationalised and under-rated movie.

merklekranz First of all, this film can be divided into three segments. A promising opening, with the ambushing of some cavalry by the Cheyenne. This is followed by what can only be described as a long boring middle section, with the totally miscast Candice Bergen and "Soldier Blue" traveling together to reach the safety of an Army garrison. Miss Bergen spews forth inappropriate four letter words every time she opens her mouth, and looks like she just walked out of a 1970s Jack Nicholson movie. I mean she maintains zero interest, with zero believability. The third and final section involves the totally gratuitous slaughter of an Indian village. This is so obviously overdone to lay on the anti-war propaganda, that it comes across as simply long, outrageous, and contrived. Not recommended. - MERK................................ Jacobe (comment above) Here's an idea. Why don't you actually watch the movie you are commenting on, instead of chirping your liberal nonsense. This is not a political site, it is for reviewing films. - MERK

The_Void Soldier Blue is a rather odd film. It's a mixture of a war film and a western; it's a film about war, but instead of focusing on the war, we focus on just two characters and their conflicting ideologies and despite it's reputation for having a high shock value, most of it actually plays out like something you might see in one of those westerns/war flicks that gets played on TV on a Sunday afternoon. This is a well made film, but for all the conflicting elements; I'm not surprised that the film has been banished into obscurity. The film takes place during the American civil war and focuses on the war between the US Army and the native Indians. At the start of the film, we witness a US cavalry group get slaughtered by Indians, leaving only the naive private Honus and a world-weary young girl named Cresta alive. Despite their differences, the pair band together to try and reach a US fortress where they will be safe and in the process develop an understanding. We follow the two of them as they make their way through the Wild West...Soldier Blue is actually a really clever film and packs a hell of a lot more of a punch than many other anti-war movies out there. The majority of the film focuses on the two central characters and everything feels rather light-hearted. We get to know the pair of them and watch them squabble and it's all rather fun and amusing to watch. The anti-war ideology comes through by way of the character of Cresta; an anti-American native Indian sympathiser whose beliefs are the direct opposite of the young soldier she is travelling with. She makes good points throughout, but director Ralph Nelson never shoves anything down the audience's throats; it's not until the end that the real point of the movie comes through, and while the violence is strong (this film features one of the greatest beheading sequences ever filmed!), it's point is clearly defined and the anti-war message is so much more potent than it would have been if the idea was enforced with a sledge hammer. The film is excellently produced and acted, with Candice Bergen thoroughly convincing in the lead role and getting good support from Peter Strauss; and the film also features a memorable role for the great Donald Pleasance. Overall, this is a bizarre movie but it is one that is definitely worth seeing and while the climax may be too strong for some, it's hard to deny its power. Highly recommended viewing!