Released in theaters on April 27, 2022, Sentinel South is a dramatic film retracing a complicated and painful return to civilian life for three former French soldiers. Mathieu Gérault’s first feature film, with Niels Schneider and Sofian Khammes in the cast, is now available on OCS.
If war films are generally appreciated, the public is even more fond of dramatic films showing the hard return to normal life for the military, in particular for those who have spent several months or years on the battlefields. In this genre, we could obviously think of the film american sniper (2014) by Clint Eastwood, Thank You For Your Service (2017), or the excellent Brothers (2009), with Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman. In Sentinel Souththe first feature film by Mathieu Gérault, a trio of former French soldiers, freshly returned from Afghanistan, will try to reintegrate, without imagining how hard and complex the return to reality will be.
After their unit is decimated in Afghanistan, Christian (Niels Schneider), Henri (Thomas Daloz) and Mounir (Sofian Khammes), the only survivors, are all sent back to their suburbs. The three former soldiers now have a mission as civilians: to succeed in reintegrating despite their multiple traumas. They obviously did not return unscathed from their mission: Christian has alcohol problems, Henri is interned in a psychiatric hospital and Mounir suffers from a serious leg injury.
A complicated return to civilian life
Faced with a society unwilling to understand their traumas, the three childhood friends are at an impasse. In addition to not being able to fit in, the former soldiers have to deal with questions and the general incomprehension of their families. Doing odd jobs, stranded in their neighborhoods and feeling betrayed by their own country, the survivors quickly find themselves at the heart of a major opium traffic, with a debt that must be paid. Returning in spite of themselves to a spiral of criminality, these three men, truly broken by the war, will have to make choices in order to hope to one day be able to live in peace.
The film Sentinel South is available now on OCS, and airs tonight at 9 p.m. on OCS Pulp.
Sources: AlloCine, The World