An international terrorist finds a way to infiltrate the USA and a group of Navy Seals has to stop him.
A group of Navy Seals are tasked with the almost impossible chore of protecting the USA from an international terrorist who is set on their destruction. A Ukranian drug dealing billionaire decides to back the terrorist cell fronted by one of his childhood friends. Together they develop a number of suicide vests which cannot be picked up by airport security machines.
This would give them the chance to attack the country at whichever port they decide on and the USA would have absolutely no way of being able to track their movements. A group of experienced Navy Seals, who stumble upon these activities quite by accident, are thrown into the fray, needing to stop the suicide bombers before they can release their deadly packages.
They use all of the ultra modern technologies available to aide them in their quest to stop the terrorists, all the time, trying to stay alive, while some of the most deadly men on the planet are trying to keep them from returning to their families who love them.
This film originally started life as a short recruitment film for the US Army and Navy and it was decided that this was so good that it should be made into a full length movie. I am not sure who decided this, but they made the wrong choice. The movie plays out as a combination of a recruitment film, a documentary of sorts and a a realllly long intro video for "Call of Duty, Black Ops". All of which might have been good things, but together they are certainly not.
Taking the risky venture of using real active Navy Seals as the stars of this film, did not pay off. These men are true heroes, but sadly, despite all of their fine acts of heroism in the service of their country, they are not actors. Giving them emotional lines and scenes to perform was not the finest of ideas,and the actors which co-directors Mike Mccoy and Scott Waugh DID find, were sadly, not up to the task either.
Jason Cottle takes the role of Russian terrorist Abu Shabal, in his first major film since "Wedding Singer" in 1998, but sadly is neither convincing nor plausible. His performance is weak and the film needed a far stronger actor to carry it. Ukranian born Alex Veadov, gives a fair showing as billionaire drug pin "Christo", but should probably stick to the computer games voice roles which has paid the rent for the past few years. The beautiful Roselyn Sanchez is a nice distraction as CIA agent "Lisa Morales" and it should be interesting to see her in more serious roles going forward.
Even if you are a fan of war films, or a hard core first person shooter fan, you will still have trouble digesting this film as anything but an experiment. The script is weak and the action not too convincing. It will more than likely do well as a recruitment film, but for serious movie goers, steer clear of this one.
3.5/10
Propaganda movie full of clichés and bad acting. I found it was confused. Are we a serious film, a documentary, propaganda material or video game? I saw this in a Dutch cinema. People walked out. I got bored during the many long, drawn out hero shots. It interrupted the pace. Get rid of the stereotypes (all Muslims are a threat and suicide bombers are all forced against their will etc.), stop slowing down the pace with those hero shots, cut out the dialogue because these are not actors, and work out the plot a bit more. My favourite part was actually the CIA agent's small bit. That's not saying much ;)
ReplyDeleteIt was not anything special, I wish they could have decided whether it was a game or a documentary
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