Hyena Road

One thing that makes "Hyena Road" excellent is that the film continues a cinematic and literary tradition of the Canadian ability to fight back, of intelligent opposition. In popular literature this goes back as far as Robert Service. In film it goes back to the (serious) Royal Mounties movies and to such Hollywood blockbusters as "The Wild North" (1952) and Stewart Grangers' character of Jules Vincent. Because Canada has become such an appendage to the USA in modern times we forget how outstanding the fighting ability of these people and their institutions can be. I do Not write this as a Canadian, mind you. But as an objective, non-Canadian who was very impressed by the combative intelligence and cross-cultural savvy of "Hyena Road". This is a sleeper. This is a keeper.

This is excellent film about modern warfare with convincing battle scenes, ramped up tension and incredible locations. Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Very hard to tell in Afghanistan as Canadian soldiers do their duty, to little effect. In my view it is a superior film to the much hyped American Sniper. The performances were all very convincing and Paul Gross's direction was swift and to the point. The atmosphere of working in a very foreign land for the Canadian soldiers is very apparent. I found I cared about what they were doing, as I was frankly trying to figure out their mission. If you enjoyed films like Zero Dark Thirty or The Hurt Locker, you should see this film.

This is an outstanding war film. As others have commented, it examines the Afghanistan conflict in a particularly Canadian way --- which means that each character has a distinct point of view and a unique place in the world. The film makes clear not only that each understands his/her situation differently, but also that each viewpoint merits the full weight of our attention and consideration. Both the nobility of sacrifice and the utter senselessness of war are captured. There have been many well-made recent films about our current conflict with the Islamic world. This is certainly one of the best of them.

I found the film to be somewhat adrift as far as the theme and the storyline. There didn't seem to be much of a resolution, rather a way to end the film. If it's supposed to be an analogy of the current situation in Afghanistan, well we get that "It's not one war, it's a lot of little wars" message earlier on. It would make a superb pilot for a series centered around the Intel guy (Paul Gross). I found the scenes within the CP interesting: radio procedure has changed dramatically in the 40 years since I was in the infantry. But the only scene I found totally authentic was the "dance in the desert" scene. This sort of thing does happen spontaneously within a tight knit group. And the patrol procedure and snipercraft were off in my opinion. The "Ghost" character was my favorite. I liked the fact that no subtitles were used and that, like the soldiers, we had to listen to the interpreter. I would liked to have seen his character developed. The artillery scenes were authentic and dramatic, but it was the only time I've seen the gunners get a target round on the first shot. The small arms combat sequences were excellent. Total confusion like always. All in all, I enjoyed it, and I recommend it.

This is a pretty well made little movie about the complexities of trying to understand cultural norms of a country thousands of years older than the conquering force. I liked that there was no judgement, just a simple, if somewhat disturbing, portrayal of this difficult circumstance.

Solid acting, realistic action and fairly good character development.

An interesting watch.