The White Helmets

This documentary film tells the story of a group of civilians in Syria, who volunteer for a group called The White Helmets to save lives of people affected by the civil war.

The film contains footage of air raids and rescue. There is a scene where bombs are seen dropping from a plane, trailing them to the ground and then we see buildings explode. This scene just makes me speechless. The miracle baby scene makes me very touched. I hope more people will take part in humanitarian missions. If the war would stop, that would be even better.

As a 1-star comment around here suggested, I did my homework on the White Helmets. Fortunately, claims that WH are terrorists seem to be unfounded and highly motivated by political reasons. Sources like Snopes - a fact-checking website, BBC, The Guardian and SBS, all agree that the accusations held against the WH are pure propaganda as there is no evidence whatsoever behind them.

This documentary, although a little "Hollywood", is a great depiction of those heroic people, risking their lives to save civilians, no matter what side they're on. It's a little short and some scenes might be staged, but in my opinion the documentary and the work of these men is truly inspirational and restores a little my hope in humanity. They deserve all the praise!

It's funny to see how a so called "documentary" based on lies and deceptions wins an Oscar. Telling lies and deceiving people, in return people will clapping you, and hey here's your Oscar. And people loved this bs (or very small proportion). There are reportages about White helmets, by real independent journalists, you should watch them and after that review this movie. Total garbage. Shame on you!

Documentary about real heroes. Everybody knows the situation in the middle east, but not many of us can connect in deep emotions with them, because we only see numbers. This documentary shows brave men fighting for the life of other people in their country without any weapons. I think that in this noise around refugees it's really hard to hear the voice of people who actually stay there. Thanks to this documentary You can somehow regain confidence in the fact that there are good people fighting for the right cause, but at the same time wonder why is this all happening and how come this kind of situations just pass through us on a daily basis. The only reason I gave a 9/10 is because it could be longer, but at the same time it's long enough. It's my first ever review on IMDb, because my feelings after watching this just couldn't let me just leave it as it is. I will definitely recommend this to everybody I'll have a chance to.

This documentary is about the Syrian Civil Defense or "The White Helmets" as the film makers decided to name them. It focuses on the personal side of the characters trying to make the viewer perceive these people as human beings rather than numbers you hear on the news. While the film succeeds at the emotional part, it fails to offer much else. There were many repetitive scenes for a 40 min documentary, and the focus on some characters went overboard sometimes.

Now, I wrote the previous part of my review trying to be as objective as possible. The next part, I will write as a Syrian who isn't on any of the many sides of the Syrian war. What made me write this review, my first on IMDb, is that I noticed many negative reviews seeming to push a propaganda opposite to the propaganda they were claiming this film is about. Comments I have high confidence they come from Syrian Assad supporters so I thought I would try to restore the balance.

While the film clearly favors the side of the WHs, their side itself is about "saving lives" regardless of any other factors so what is there to disagree with? Some commentators said the WHs are terrorists/islamists/etc and I find that really insulting as I don't myself live in a war zone in Syria, I never heard anyone questioning or criticizing WHs. Also, common sense tells me these people don't have to lie about their intentions in a country where there are countless factions fighting. Everyone is free to have their own opinion, but when most of the 1-star reviews come from 1 review accounts I find it fishy - one reviewer stating "England" as his country starts with "Shame on the western-world", a prevalent statement in the Al-Assad regime media.

Syria is a country where many evils fight. You have Al-Assad, factions affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and finally ISIS!! Each side will try to convince you with their story, like Assad fan base in many of the comments I mentioned, but the real story in Syria is about many villains fighting over the pie of things like power/oil/location and poor people suffering in the crossfire. The only light one can find in this tragedy is people like the ones in this movie whose mandate is save lives. Thank you White Helmets!