One Shot

Scott Adkins is the reliable, taciturn star of low-budget action flicks that Steven Seagal still thinks he is. The man is a legit martial artist. He looks tough, yet smart enough to be the hero of any sort of action flick he's offered, whether grounded in kick-boxing, organized crime or, as here, soldiering. Adkins leads a S. E. A. L. team deployed to a black-site island prison to transport a suspected terrorist to Washington ASAP. He supposedly knows what's needed to prevent an imminent nuclear attack in a major American city. His crew brings a civilian agent (Ashley Greene) to try to coax the intel from the detainee, since a period of "extreme interrogation" failed. The guy running the place (Ryan Phillipe) resents the hell out of this insulting intrusion on his domain and resists the extraction order, despite the claimed urgency and scale of the threat.

Horrible timing. Before they can leave, a horde of heavily-armed, disciplined terrorists crashes the party (literally and figuratively), killing the guards, destroying the means of exit, and cutting off communications before reinforcements could be summoned. They want the same inmate for whatever their end-game may be, regardless of the body count on either side.

What follows is a long, large-scale shootout between a horde of bad guys, amplified by the other prisoners they set free, and a greatly outnumbered and outgunned cluster of Adkins-led defenders. The clash plays out somewhat like a video game through the large, maze-like complex, both indoors and out, racking up a massive body count of anonymous characters, plus casualties among those we know by name and care about.

Adkins does what Adkins does as convincingly as ever. I started this review by calling him reliable for a reason. His brand of predictable is a significant asset, not a critique. The dude delivers exactly what his fans expect of him, which is largely a high score on the adrenaline scale that minimizes cerebral exertion. Here's a satisfying example for your guilty-pleasure enjoyment.

. . . action; too many corpses: too many fights! All this being said, the bottom line is that the film is quite watchable and entertaining. Believable characters are both the good guys and the bad ones too.

I had no expectations to this 2021 action thriller from writer Jamie Russell and director James Nunn. I hadn't even heard about the movie prior to watching it. However, I saw that the movie had Scott Adkins in the lead role, and with it being a movie I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to sit down and watch "One Shot".

And while the storyline and plot in "One Shot" was essentially very simple and didn't have all that much going on in it, then "One Shot" was actually still a rather enjoyable movie. Why? Well, the sheer amount of action in the movie, and the way that the action scenes were filmed. It totally worked in favor of the movie, and made me feel like I was right there in the action.

"One Shot" had two actors that I was familiar with, and that was Scott Adkins and Ryan Philippe. But I will say that they had gotten together a good cast ensemble for the movie, and the actors and actresses were putting on good performances to bring the movie to life on the screen.

"One Shot" certainly was entertaining and enjoyable, I will say that. However, this is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing, as there simply isn't enough material and contents to the storyline to support multiple viewings.

My rating of "One Shot" lands on a six out of ten stars.

Then this action packed movie is quite watchable; at least I didn't give up in the middle of it and cursed loudly as I used to do when watched a lousy B-movie soiled my day. This movie is actually quite good, the only thing that's not right is the numbers of the terrorists who appeared in a mid-sized truck, and how they got on the island in the middle of nowhere without transportation. The Seal team and the CIA lady needed chopper to get to the island, how these terrorists got on the island without even alerted the terrorist detainees black site? If you could put your logic, IQ and, well, the basic elementary math aside, then it's a quite exciting combat movie. Scott Adkins did a great job as usual, and I like him a lot, his acting has become better and better.

Here you have it, your "One Shot". You will enjoy non-stop action for 1,5 hours. The fighting scenes, hand-to-hand combat and the explosions are very well executed. Everybody will say off course that the plot and screenplay was a bit simple. But who cares? This movie is fast paced and will never get bored. Regarding the acting, Ashley Greene stands out as the tough and steady Zoey, the mysterious CIA analyst. And Scott Adkins as Jake, leader of the SEAL time, also delivers an outstanding performance. The scenes inside the building to the chasing from block to block, against the raining of gunshots and the transition from one set-up to another is done in one flow. Astonishing. If you have seen "Unbreakable", you know the storyline. The execution however is totally different. Conclusion: if you like action movies, this is a must.