2006, Israel
Adventure, Drama, Family
If children can work past the differences of their parents' world, perhaps the generation before them can realize that far more is accomplished by working together.
In Little Heroes, as children carry on the usual skirmishes during summer camp, a few are forced together to help a couple in trouble. When the only witness to the accident is the new girl in town who has an enhanced sense of hearing for their cries for help, her supervisors are slow to commit a search party. Determined to find the couple, she creates her own rescue team.
As she retraces her steps through Israel's Negev desert, she is aided by her mentally challenged older brother who does not speak Hebrew (they are recent Russian immigrants) and a boy with his late father's army equipment but none of his skills. As they pass through a nearby firing range and a gated kibbutz, they must work together to pass each obstacle.
It seems fitting that the children are first seen crawling over a war memorial near the Gaza strip commemorating foreign troops who fought there during both World Wars. Erez recently lost his father to a failed military mission and finds himself arguing with a kibbutz boy over which commanding units are most effective. Though their goals are the same, they are divided from within by the squabbles of their families.
Adults are mostly peripheral in this film that deals with situations not found in Disney fare. Though each child is struggling with his own predicament at home, he is forced to move beyond personal fears for the greater cause. When others are at risk, they discover their differences are irrelevant.
Israeli Itai Lev directs his second film based on Eran B.Y.'s short story, "Lending a Hand." The children are effective in portraying their daily troubles without overdramatizing their predicaments. Much is internalized and subtly depicted as they struggle to survive and learn from a childhood that will have a great effect on the future.