Premise: A soldier in Iraq gets pinned down behind a wall by a sniper and has limited ability to get help.
I love an idea this simple. It's basically a three-person cast. John Cena spends most of it unconscious. Laith Nakli is only a voice on a radio. So that means Aaron Taylor-Johnson is alone on screen almost the entire time, and he even has a leg injury that limits his mobility. This is a thriller about two men trying to outwit each other. The movie isn't even 90 minutes long, so it doesn't drag things out. The threat of death keeps it engaging throughout. Director Doug Liman has plenty of experience with this kind of action movie too, so he knows how to shoot it. Same with cinematographer Roman Vasyanov.
To be fair, I was convinced I'd like this movie from the moment I saw a trailer for it. I liked the very similar movie Phone Booth and the even more singularly focused film Locke. I would've seen this even sooner too, but thanks to the generic title, it took too long to actually locate it on Amazon Prime. It's also been fun to track John Cena's movie career. It's pretty much been kid's movies, R-rated comedies, and soldier roles. I don't think he's ever going to be The Rock, but he seems pretty likely to stick around for a while, especially since he's willing to take a smaller, less invincible role like this.
The movie does require some suspension of disbelief though. It's not a believable movie. It's about a legendary Iraqi sniper with superhuman accuracy and understanding of U.S. Military protocol. I doubt that character would really play mind games for that long. And, while I liked the ending a lot, it's not remotely plausible either. So yeah, don't watch this if you are looking for something that doubles as a military instructional video.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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