Product Details

• Actors: Dennis Quaid, Stellan Skarsgard
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Unknown)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: April 20, 1999
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (102 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767825225
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,328 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Savior" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Filmed in Montenegro and based on true accounts of the early '90s ethnic clashes between Serbia and neighboring states, Savior is a harrowing triumph for Serbian director Pedrag Peter Antonijevic and actor Dennis Quaid. For Antonijevic, who shaped Robert Orr's script through his own knowledge of the Serb-Bosnian struggle, the story provides the daunting challenge of putting a human face on a monstrous chapter in modern Europe's geopolitical evolution, and of transcending nationalism by capturing an even-handed but hardly unemotional portrait of the "war psychosis" that only partly explains the deep, divisive hatreds at work. For Quaid, Savior rescues his artistic reputation after too many formulaic studio outings that attempted merely to cash in on his wolfish charms.

Quaid is Joshua Rose, an American in Paris traumatized by the death of his wife and child in an Islamic terrorist bombing, wreaking immediate and fateful vengeance on innocent Muslim worshippers, then escaping into a new life as a mercenary supporting Bosnian Serbs. Under the nom du guerre Guy, Rose is a remorseless, nearly comatose presence until he intervenes in a brutal attack on a Serbian woman (Natasa Ninkovic) pregnant from a Muslim rape. Guy's gradual immersion in his charge's destiny brings him face to face with the centuries-old political, religious, and cultural feuds that haunt the region, and Quaid's own salvation comes through a remarkably subdued, sober performance. That restraint, and Quaid's haggard, close-cropped features are all but unrecognizable to those more familiar with his cocky, grinning turns as a more conventional hero.

Antonijevic makes the journey absorbing and, ultimately, elegiac, punctuated by a few brief but convincingly gruesome action sequences including a civilian massacre that would have been the climax of a more conventional war film. Instead, it's Quaid's own epiphanies that distinguish this probing, heartbreaking drama. The DVD edition retains the original widescreen aspect ratio and includes an audio commentary from the director. --Sam Sutherland.

Product Description

SAVIOR - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sad but true..., September 9, 2004

By 

Y. SEMENIC (BELFORT France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Savior (DVD)

War in south-eastern europe (Croatia and Bosnia) during the nineties wasn't a confrontation between gentlemen : believe it or not, it has ALWAYS happened like that in these countries. Atrocities toward civilians were made by ALL sides (Croats, Serbs and Muslims). This honest and interesting movie shows that clearly. In spite of that I was already aware of these facts, this fictional story, of an american soldier of fortune, whose family had been previously killed by muslim terrorists and, then fighting alongside the Serbs, had some impact on me. Many scenes were so realistically shot that it was 'painfull' to watch them (especially the last one)... Maybe not the best war movie ever produced but, you shouldn't miss it, just to have an objective opinion about what really occured in former yugoslavia.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Painful but necessary glimpse of the war in Bosnia, May 14, 2003

By 

J. Houzet "wozamoya" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Savior [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This was one of the most emotionally gripping movies I have ever seen... this was a triumph for actor Dennis Quaid, a departure from his usual roles. Here he is the anti-hero, the guy whose pain and grief we understand but whose journey into darkness we shudder at.
... This is NOT a Serbian propaganda piece, as some have suggested. To the contrary, the first monster we meet in this story (other than Quaid's mercenary) is a Serbian soldier who cuts off a Muslim grandmother's finger to take her ring and talks casually about the Muslim women he has raped in prison camps. But the atrocities are not limited to the Serbs.
We first encounter Quaid's character, Joshua Rose, as a US military officer based in Paris. His wife and young son are killed in a bomb blast at a cafe opposite a US consular building. Rose's rage and vengeance is immediately directed at the nearest mosque, where he goes in and starts shooting Muslim worshipers in the back. Several people [have] called these worshipers "innocent," but that might be a misnomer because at least one of the Muslims drew his own handgun ...
Anyway, Rose is encouraged by his friend (played by Stellan Skarsgaard) to flee arrest. They join the Foreign Legion, take on new identities and fight in wars in various countries. But Rose is just marking time. He wants a war he can believe in. This interlude was meant to show a passage of time and how long Rose has held onto his resentment, but it is too hurried to have that effect.
Rose and his friend end up in the former Yugoslavia, fighting on the side of the Serbs. Rose is trained as a sniper and we see him waiting for targets with relentless patience. Anyone is a target... His new partner is a Serb, hardened by war and without compassion. His partner's brutality toward a young Serbian woman pregnant by a Muslim rapist (like it was her fault!) finally causes Rose to intervene on behalf of someone.
He takes her to her home but her family rejects her and even pursues them both to exact punishment from some twisted sense of honor. From then on it's a desperate flight to get to a UN safe haven. Rose's long dead compassion is aroused for the woman's bastard child, and seeing him care for her baby awakens the mother out of her own numbness.
Like others have said, this does not have a happy ending, but at least offers a glimmer of hope for souls to be redeemed and survivors to have a chance at life.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TOO REAL, November 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Savior (DVD)

This film took me utterly by surprise. Frankly, I didn't know to expect. What I thought was going to be a typical Hollywood take on war, was instead a difficult, unflinching and harrowing film about the horrors of war in general and Bosnia in particular. I must admit, on more than one occasion I had to walk away from the screen. I felt helpless and angry and, at points, shivered at the sheer horror of what was unfolding before me. This film is yet another testament to man's inhumanity to man. To be honest, I don't think I shall ever forget this film. Even though I read much on the subject and stared in disbelief at the pictures broadcast on the evening news, "Savior" completely redefined for me this grim and inhumane chapter in modern history. Dennis Quaid gives an honest and gut-felt performance as Joshua (a.k.a. "Guy"); a role very different from anything he's ever done in the past and, quite frankly, unlikely to do again. This film steered clear of Hollywood clichés, gimmicks and tidy endings. This is a movie about the chaos and horror of war and at no time, does anyone attempt to glamorize it, thus diminishing it's power to move and anger, shock and repel. There's no happy ending to be had in this movie. The end only conveys the ultimate truth: In war, there are no winners. I watched this movie with a friend who was reduced to tears by the time the end credits rolled onto the screen. I, on the other hand, was still and speechless. A cathartic experience and one that will be with me for quite a long time. An all around outstanding film, difficult as it was to see.