A great war movie, made in Utah on a tiny budget.

Rated PG-13 for war violence and related images; 90 minutes.

Opening today at area theathers.

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The made-in-Utah World War II drama Saints and Soldiers proves, on a budget of under $1 million, that there are things money can't buy: brains, heart, sharp screenwriting, a director who can make a little look like a lot, and young, hungry acting talent.

Director/cinematographer Ryan Little begins with the brutally poetic images of blood on snow. The moment is the Malmedy Massacre, a horrific point in the Battle of the Bulge in which German soldiers shot 72 Allied P.O.W.s dead and left their bodies to freeze in the Ardennes woods.

The story begins with four survivors of that tragedy, G.I.s trying to hide out behind enemy lines. The quartet seems, at first, like your typical war-movie foxhole - Gunderson (Peter Holden), a tough-talking sergeant; Gould (Alexander Niver), a Brooklyn medic; Kendrick (Lawrence Bagby), a Louisiana redneck; and Greer (Corbin Allred), a soft-spoken sharpshooter whose religious devotion earns him the nickname Deacon.

The four are content to lay low until the battle's over, until they find a British paratrooper, Winley (Kirby Heyborne), who has intelligence data that may help the Allies win the battle. But getting Winley's information back to Allied territory is complicated because Deacon, the most reliable shot in the group, is sleep-deprived and suffering a spiritual crisis because of a tragic combat incident. Deacon's command of the German language (he was a missionary in Berlin before the war) also raises the suspicions of the cynical athiest Gould.

Little, who directed the small-but-sweet LDS romance Out of Step, makes his mini-budgeted film feel like a solid Hollywood production. Shooting in snowy woods near Alpine, Utah, primarily with handheld cameras, Little achieves a gritty realism in the war images and a sharp intimacy with his characters. The wartime atmosphere is impressive in its authenticity, thanks to an array of World War II buffs - collectors who let the filmmakers use vintage military vehicles, and dozens of World War II re-enactors came to Utah at their own expense for the chance to pretend-fight for the cameras.

The script, by historian Geoffrey Panos and documentarian Matt Whitaker, is unflinching in its portrayal of war and subtle in handling the religious themes without reference to a particular denomination. Allred (a Salt Lake native who co-starred with Kirk Douglas in Diamonds) is strong as the tormented but gentle Deacon, and the rest of the cast is powerful - notably Heyborne (The R.M.), who graduates from his Mormon Cinema roots with a solid dramatic performance (and a jolly good English accent).

Saints and Soldiers finds a small story within the massive undertaking of World War II - and, miraculously, never shortchanges the human scale or the heroic scope.

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