An average movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was starring Russell Crowe and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though it was nothing really original, I must admit that it turned out to be a decent watch. The beginning was rather ominous and I forgot almost right away that the action was taking place in the Philippines (is the situation really so bad in this country right now?). Anyway, the approach was, at least at first, fairly realistic and grim which was much appreciated and, above all, Milo Ventimiglia was surprisingly convincing as a seasoned Master Sergeant. In fact, Liam Hemsworth who is usually a rather cheap clone of his brother Chris wasn’t bad at all here either. However, at some point, they pretty much discarded any realism (seriously, the character played by Liam Hemsworth was captured not once but twice and managed to escape both times in the most far-fetched ways possible) and they went full in some bombastic action scenes but, surprisingly, the damned thing still worked. The switch in tones and approaches was still slightly jarring though. Hell, they even added some comical scenes with Russell Crowe going to a supermarket in Las Vegas while the soldiers overseas were still struggling to survive. Coming back on Crowe, the guy is still quite charismatic and, back in the days, he would have played one of these bad*ss soldiers but they still managed to involved him somehow. Coming back on how realistic it was, I wonder if they would really involve in real life some much firepower and effort, actually from both sides, just for one single soldier. Anyway, to conclude, it was still a solid action flick though and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

6/10