‘Soldiers of Paint’ Review
Written and Directed by Michael DeChant, Doug Gritzmacher
In one of the biggest paintball events ever staged, Soldiers of Paint follows D-day, an Oklahoma based paintball fight with 4000 participants. Fighting for glory, for fun and to remember the veterans of original event, this battle takes place across a 700-acre battlefield with participants utilising every means possible at their disposal to win this game of paint-fuelled fighting. That includes real tanks, aeroplanes and espionage techniques which will ultimately resolve who will win this epic battle, the Allies, or the Germans.
The soldiers of the Allied forces stand nervously in a boat as it floats towards their destination. They can hear sounds of battle in the distance and you can tell they are nervous as they clutch their weapons close to their chest. The boat thumps against the side of the lake and the front of the boat lowers with a crash. It is time. Battle cries sound, bullets fly by and they charge. This is how Soldiers of Paint begins. An exciting and interesting start to the documentary.
Following the ‘High Command’ of both sides of the battle, we see the level of preparation which goes into this large scale event. Drawing participants from all over the USA and even the world, the battle is planned down to the last detail, as they construct their own weapons, including bazookas and grenades and machines, and by that I mean tanks, to bring against their enemy. But aside from this, we also see Dewayne Convirs, owner of the land and the guy who runs the event every year, as he and his team painstaking tries to construct the battlefield to look as close the real thing as possible. You see the time and effort that is put into this event and it is astounding on levels I didn’t even imagine.
I’ll admit now, I tried paintballing once and I spent the majority of the time hiding behind a box and to see the level that the people at this event take it to, some even collapsing from heat exhaustion, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my scene. This documentary is a very entertaining look at what goes on at this event and, even though it does begin to drag towards the middle of the film, this is definitely solved by the very climactic finish to the battle which had me on the edge of my seat to see who had won the day. If your interested in paintball, or even a little bit curious, I would definitely say give Soldiers of Paint a go, it gets right into the action whilst also giving an overview of the rules and regulations of the game itself.
