Lost Mission

Two of the other three reviewers nailed this - this was probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen - if not one of the worst ever made. The single "positive" reviewer is obviously a friend of the guys that tossed this mess together one afternoon - that, or they've never watched anything more interesting than a high-school play. The acting in this thing was a joke, completely stale. The dialog was so clichéd, so poorly executed, it was almost painful to listen to. And the camera work was fourth rate (my favorite part was the Mic dangling into the shot during a chase scene). As another reviewer already mentioned - the plastic hand grenade was my second favorite part... I tried very hard to find something positive - but there's just not one single positive aspect to this movie. Unless you count the authenticity of the "Italian soldier's" accent. Don't waste your time.

I would rather watch paint dry. Worst film I have seen in years, absolute rubbish. Must have cost at least $300 to make. The acting if you can call it that was wooden stilted and mostly unintelligible. Camera work was shoddy and was covered in sun reflections for most scenes. Story line was non existent childish and downright stupid. Background music repetitive and did not fit the scenes. A right old rip-off. I would not recommend it to anyone with half a brain. How this type of film is funded and actually made remains a mystery to me. All I can imagine is that it is some sort of tax avoidance scheme. There is no way this rubbish could have got made otherwise.

Five soldiers in northern Italy, one of them female, are on a training mission for the day. One of the soldiers is shot by an unknown assailant. The film meanders in it's almost sleepwalking slowness until another soldier gets hit. This is a straight to video movie, but that is no excuse for the utterly terrible acting and back-yard, with daddies camcorder, type filming. The whole seventy-odd minutes seems to have been shot in a patch of woodland. The scenery never changes, neither did my wish that it would hurry up and end while I watched it. The lead actor has a permanently ludicrous smile on his face, and the rest of the cast would be overshadowed by five kids in high school with a camera and a spare lunch break. I love military movies, so please don't be fooled by the IMDb category. To compliment this ridiculous attempt at movie-making, There is a scene where a plastic skull complete with a nose is found, along with a plastic hand grenade. Iv'e seen better props in kid's joke shops. Don't waste your eye time on this boring, nothing ever happens, nonsense.

The best I can figure is the first two commenters must have seen the graphic, read the title, and were very disappointed when neither Rambo nor Chuck Norris showed up. However, I rate this a very credible job of story telling. It held my interest, which is something no Rambo, Chuck Norris, or Jackie Chan movie has ever done. There was certainly a cogent plot, and, the movie being something of a mystery, the details aren't pulled together until the end. I mean, what's a mystery if the first thing you do is reveal the mystery? The acting was entirely credible, the characters well developed, and each was well defined. The shots were interesting - some innovative. The camera work worked well to frame the story-telling style. Was it "Atonement?" No. But it certainly was not a waste of my time, either. Indeed, my favorite movies are those which compel me to replay scenes in my mind long after I've seen the movie to try to figure out every nuance. And I can still recall the feelings I had when watching some of the scenes.

12 January 2012. Many viewers have complained about the production values of this movie. Nevertheless, when experienced in the same manner as the critically reviewed, vastly popular The Blair Witch Project (1999), the same authentic, reality-television/movie production lends a fearful ambiance to this slow moving mystery thriller. Instead of action, there is the slowly crafted, emotional tension-filled space and time...of the anxiety of waiting and not knowing. Enemy at the Gates (2001) which as a much higher production value along with Ed Harris and Jude Law have a similar theme of waiting and slowly, almost ploddingly, excruciating presence of possible death, the creeps into the blood and echoes fear into mind. The few weaknesses in this movie might include when Lt. Floyd shoulders his weapon after one brief stop even though its much more likely that he should have kept his weapon at the ready (which occurs at the next scene), there is also a view from Lt. Floyd's perspective where he says he saw someone even being able to describe the person's clothes, but even the audience can't see anything. The military trapping and especially the female doctor's behavior and walking are striking in their apparent authenticity. What happens to the doctor in the movie is important in that if the reveal is truly considered carefully, what happens to her is consistently explained (which if not reflected on could be easily thought as a big blunder on the part of the script). One directorial improvement would have been a widened pan shot that would allow the audience to see the soldiers as they spread out together. Finally the end of the movie in someways has a twist or a reveal that is solid, perhaps powerful at even The Blair Witch Project fails at the end, however, the resulting aftermath seems a bit of an easy letdown. Overall, this movie successfully accomplishes that mood, atmosphere and even the dialogue which for some may be lame or stilted, on reflection even seems less polished and more natural, only heightening the sense of eerie omeniousness.