Female Agents (2008)

Powerful

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

hyped garbage

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

"Female Agents" from 2007 is the true story of Lise Villameur (here Louise Desfontaines, played by Sophie Marceau), an agent who worked against the Nazis during World War II. There are several films about female World War II spies: Carve Her Name with Pride is one, also a true story and very moving, and the film Odette, also very good.Desfontaines is recruited by her brother Pierre (Julien Boisselier) to find women to help rescue a British geologist from a German hospital. He had been sent to study the soil on the beaches at Normandy in preparation for D-Day and was captured. For the mission, Louise chooses Jeanne (Julie Depardieu), a prostitute who is in prison for murder; an explosives expert Gaëlle Lemenech (Déborah François); and the ex-fiancé of Colonel Karl Heindrich, Suzy Desprez (Marie Gillain). The mission goes off well, but to their consternation, Pierre has another job for them. He needs them to go to Paris to kill Colonel Heindrich who believes the Allies are planning to land in Normandy.Excellent film, suspenseful, gritty, dark, and atmospheric, with wonderful performances by everyone, but especially Marceau, who plays the tough, quick, and enterprising Louise.I'm not sure why this film received a low rating on IMDb, and I also don't know where the bland title came from. I believe "Les femmes de l'ombre" means "Women of the Shadows." There must be something more exciting than "Female Agents."This isn't your typical movie; some of it is hard to watch, but the courage of these women is quite amazing.

(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 ...

There are many positive things about this film that for me anyway make any negatives irrelevant. I know it isn't 100% accurate but the acting of all the cast is quite superb in my opinion.Sophie Marceau as Louise stands out in this film, her acting is superb and although she is clearly a beautiful woman she does not seem to mind looking less than glamorous throughout. Her range or emotion was truly gripping. Julien Boisselier as her brother Pierre is a tortured soul who has a coldness about him that was probably necessary to carry out the tasks they had to. Julie Depardieu as Jeanne, Maya Sansa as Maria,are all good as is the stunning Marie Gillain, but Déborah François as Gaëlle,did an amazing job showing her characters naiveté and youth and some really strong and convincing emotions especially when captured. Colonel Heindrich is played by Moritz Bleibtreu who has had some criticism on here but in my opinion he carried it off perfectly. Many SS were ruthless and clinical and yet at the same time gentlemen and family men. A lot of this film is unrealistic and no doubt done for dramatic effect but the more you watch the more you get drawn in. I would highly recommend this film and would watch it again I am sure.

WWII and the Nazis are favorite subjects to turn into films. "Female Agents" takes a different approach to tell a story about the last days of the conflict. When a British agent is wounded and caught by the Germans while on a mission prior to the landing at Normandy, his superiors in England go into action enlisting exiled brother and sister, Pierre and Louise Desfontaines to fly into France to rescue the wounded man from his captors.There is little preparation before the actual D-Day invasion. It is May, only a few days until the planned Allied landing. Pierre enlists his own widowed sister Louise, an expert in tactical planning to put together a small group to assist her in the rescue operation. Thus, a motley crew is assembled, Louise plus four other women will go to do their contribution to the war effort. The women come from different ways of life. Each one has a particular area of expertise to help the cause.Alas, not everything goes according to plan. The women are facing one of the most feared Nazis in France, SS Col. Heindrich. This is a challenge for the team as they will encounter all kinds of dangers while trying to do their job. The wounded agent is being interrogated by Heindrich in a French hospital. The attempt to get him out proves to be an immense job in which the women will show their courage, but at the same time, it will be a high price to pay for some in the group.Director Jean-Paul Salome, working with co-writer Laurent Vachaud, gives the audience an action packed film. The emphasis is to show the valor of these French women at a time when their country was divided, and also everyone felt the humiliation of the Nazi occupation. The partisan movement worked hard behind the scenes to try and exterminate the enemy from their soil at all costs.Sophie Marceau is fine, as usual, as Louise. The others in the group, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain, and Deborah Francois, do also good work for director Salome. As it is always the case, the bad guy, in this case, Moritz Bleibtreu, has great fun with his evil Col. Heindrich.