List Price: $19.95You Pay Only: $14.99 You Save: $4.96 (25%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: WELLSPRING/GENIUS
EAN: 0796019802420
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Weinstein Company
Manufacturer: Weinstein Company
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Weinstein Company
Region Code: 1
Release Date: June 12, 2007
Running Time: 119 minutes
Sales Rank: 13896
Studio: Weinstein Company
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
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Editorial Review:
Description:
(War/Action) Set during WWII, North African soldiers enlist in the French army and battle their way across Europe to liberate the 'fatherland' and confront discrimination.
Amazon.com:
Hype can be a dangerous thing, and the newspaper ads touting Days of Glory (aka Indigenes, French for 'Indigenous') as 'so powerful it changed the world' are nigh on impossible for any movie to live up to. This one doesn't, but director Rachid Bouchareb's World War II drama still makes for compelling viewing. Confronting the Nazis both in Italy and at home in 1943, the French Army recruits men from Algeria, then a French colony, and other North Africans to help out. Of the film's two principal themes, one, the horrors of war, is nothing new. But the battle scenes are well done; the first major clash, on a bleak Italian hillside, effectively conveys the young Muslims' confusion and abject terror. The second theme is clearly the one that inspired Bouchareb in the first place: the eternal issue of race and discrimination (also explored in 1989's Glory, about black soldiers in the Civil War). Focusing in particular on four Algerians, including Jamel Debbouze as the naïve Saïd and Roschdy Zem as the lovestruck Messaoud, the films depicts how they are denied basics like food, mail delivery, time off, and such, effectively rendering meaningless the French ideal of liberty, equality, and brotherhood. It all culminates in a small town in Alsace, where the four find brief respite before having to face a much larger and better equipped German force (this scene, as well as a final bit in a cemetery, carry heavy echoes of Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan). Bouchareb apparently made Days of Glory at least in part to shame the French government into handing over long-frozen pensions to surviving soldiers and their kin. French president Jacques Chirac finally approved the funds in 2006--apparently after seeing this film. So maybe it did change the world a little after all. --Sam Graham
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Great movie
I would give this movie a rating of 6 stars if I could. Based on true story with great acting and drama. Director Debbouze did it again.
Rating: - French Colonial Troops from North Africa are due their pensions
Dear Sir or Madam:
This film convinces me that all surviving Islamic Veterans of French Colonies that served bravely and ably in the French 1st Army and French XIX Corps in the nightmarish and terrifying Battles; in the mountains and plains of Italy, France and Germany, during World War II; should be paid their full pensions, with interest, since 1959, when the pensions were taken away. The World War II Veterans of the French Colonies of France; especially Algeria, Morroco and Tunisia(the Legendary Tirailleurs and others) should have their military pensions fully reinstated by NATO down to the second generation if these French Colonial Soldiers have passed away or their children.
Perhaps, only then, can we be righteous and attain peace with are aging Muslim Comrades in Arms from World War II who live in Northwest Africa and France. Sincerely, Daniel P. Kneeland
Rating:  - Below my Expectations
I had big expectations for this movie according to the reviews received. It was not a very powerful drama and as a war movie it was light in the action, I consider it slow moving and very talky. As stating a case for returning the retirement benefits for the North African soldiers that fought for France in World War II that were suspended after the Independence of Morocco and Algiers from France it makes a point.
It did not shock me the mistreatment and contempt the French authorities provided the North African soldiers as they were considered second class citizens of the colonies (the first class citizens were the French living in the colonies calles Pied Noir) and not even French nationals. The North African soldiers were fighting for their oppressors in reality. It is ironic that while Americans, Canadians, Brits, Poles and scores of people from different nationalities and continents were fighting for the freedom of France against Nazi Germany at the same time France was keeping a sizable number of their military keeping tha French colonies in North Africa and Asia in line. In this situation of double moral standards using people considered inferior as cannon fodder I believe was only expected. The North African volunteers or Indigenes were not fighting for freedom, equality or brotherhood and specially not for France, each had motivations other than love of country as we can attest in the movie most went to Europe for plunder and payment, as mercenary soldiers. It is well ... Read More
Rating: - Long overdue.
An intense film that while has often been compared to Saving Private Ryan other than them both being war films has very little in common.
The film depicts Algerian soldiers who had volunteered to fight in the French army during world war 2. The film begins with a village elder in Algeria calling upon the men to fight for the 'motherland' France against German occupation. When enlisted, they are brought together with North African troops who had already been fighting in North Africa and were to be posted to France. They are put under the command of an Algerian born French officer, given the most basic of training and then sent to the front.
Their first battle is to take a hilltop heavily fortified by German forces. While suffering heavy casualties they manage to capture the position. Encouraged by their success and now with valuable military experience they are greeted as heroes in France. Still prejudice is never far away. The first most obvious example we are give is when on board a boat the men are receiving a meal however, the chef refuses to give a tomato to a black soldier resulting in a minor mutiny that is only quelled when their commanding officer assures them that all will receive the same rations.
The army unit moves to the mountains where they are commanded to hold positions in freezing conditions while white French troops are given leave, finally they are given leave only to return back to be given a mission to hold a small French village under ... Read More
Rating:  - Over Hyped, Badly Executed
The hype over this movie is incredible, but the film fails far short of its potential, and falls into a depressing and predictable rut. Make no doubt, this movie does not hold a candle to Saving Private Ryan, which is sad, because there is a compelling story to be told. Spielburg could have breathed life into this mess and made it a masterpiece.
Days of Glory misses every opportunity to deal with the tragic reality of oppressive racism and systematic abuse of French colonial troops. The movie quickly takes on an element of politicaly correct, and predictable whining. It ignores potential for exploring difficult, complex subject matter in a real and poignant way: the white French are all cowardly whimps, the colonial troops are all heros, blah, blah blah. The reality, was somewhere in between; there were plenty of examples of white French officers who fought bravely alongside there colonial troops in 1940. Nor will you find the a hint of the efforts of French officers to try and save their troops from barbaric summary executions by the German army during the blitzkrieg.
Sadly, because the characters are so wooden, there is never a meaningful or thought provoking conversation between a European or a colonial soldier. Nor is there any attempt to put a human face on the average German soldier, most of whom where arguably victims of a the fanatical Nazi state. And the dialog between the Arabs isn't much better - very little character development takes place in Days of Glory. Compare ... Read More
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