Shadow Force

3/5 STARS - Is this going down as the best movie of 2025? No. Did I enjoy it? Yes, despite its flaws. I liked the story and the characters, though at least one actor (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) was terribly miscast. Shadow Force tells the story of a married couple on the run from the secret agency they'd worked for and then escaped from. Now they're being hunted by the leader of the agency (played by Mark Strong). There's action, heartwarming moments, romance, and a touch of comedy. It doesn't break the mold, but it was a fun watch and the audience I was with seemed to enjoy it a lot. I'm happy it was something I could walk away from not feeling angry or hugely disappointed. Maybe it helped that I went into it with rather low expectations (based on the film's generic, uninspiring trailer). And maybe it also helped that it was directed by Joe Carnahan (Boss Level, The A-Team and other films I've liked a lot). Video review available on my YouTube channel.

This movie has a good premise, a very good and capable cast, and even had a decent script. However, the directing was absolutely terrible, making many B movies look Oscar-worthy. It took forever to get going. In fact, it was so slow getting going that I nodded off - twice - during the first half hour. A perfect example of a production suffering from a writer who should stick to writing and leave the directing to someone else. Kerry Washington is good and even believable as an action star, with moments of Olivia Pope shining through. Da'vine was a great surprise, too.

My suggestion is wait to watch it when it starts streaming - for free.

There are some good ideas floating around in SHADOW FORCE, and the film has its laudable moments. However, the plot is a barely-comprehensible mess, and the action scenes are often poorly-staged. Jahleel Kamara is the standout performance of the film, and all scenes with him work better than the others. This film feels like it was sabotaged by a production problem (running out of money, argument over final cut, footage lost, cast member becoming ill, or something similar) that necessitated cobbling together something perhaps different from what was intended. It might also be something cobbled together to fit business needs (Colombian production incentives, career goals of Kerry Washington, Da'Vine, Method Man), but the end result feels compromised and unworthy of an audience's time.

Former covert assassins on the run, fighting to eliminate those who won't let them live in peace.

I'm all in for a group of villainous assassins, and professional mercs! But here, most of these characters don't even have personalities.. much less memorable quirks. The leads work for their respective roles, but aren't particularly charismatic. I do think there's just too much French (for some reason), and the developments aren't particularly exciting. Nothing jumps out, nor stays with you.

Still, the film is quite competent, and a well acted and executed story of elements already done in the past.. a lot. This time, there's a child involved in the mix.

Kind of hard to recommend, knowing how average it is.

Its bad.

Its really bad I didn't like the actors.

The script was bad.

The directing was bad.

Who in this reality would release this to real theatres. It is not even good enough for online.

Most of the action scenes were off camera until that last one.

It had silly scenes, like Kerry Washington getting in a punching/slug match with 2 people, she is 50 years, while 90% of it was off camera, it was still silly. I can only imagine how bad it looked that they only showed the back of her head for a few minutes of it bouncing around.

Even the opening scene, somehow our unarmed main action star takes out a roomful of people with automatic weapons, because he is just that tough. Well I assume he did because they are all dead, and he walks away but it was all off camera so hard to tell.