The Kill Team

There's a lot of squawking here about the message of this movie, and frankly i don't understand the outrage. As a Navy veteran, I can attest to the fact that most of our servicemen and servicewomen are decent and honorable, but there is sometimes the soldier or sailor who is there for the wrong reasons.

Why would good soldiers defend these indefensible monsters?

In the news these days is Chief Edward Gallagher, an example of such a monster, who has brought dishonor to Seal Team Seven. These heroes have been punished for daring to speak out about Gallagher's crimes, and the Secretary of the Navy has resigned in the aftermath, because a draft-dodging phony of a president sides with that psychotic murderer.

As with the police, the good actors need to expose the bad actors.

As a possible war with Iran looms, people need to see this movie.

There is a lot of tension in this film, as a young American soldier in Afghanistan finds that his sergeant wants to make his team do unacceptable things. There are issues of conscience, obviously, but the story also touches the difficulty of breaking rank, reporting anything above your superior officer, behaving differently than your teammates, the casual bullying in the army and the general apathy regarding due process or anything other than the blind discipline required of military people.

The story in the film is based on the Maywand District murders, about which the writer/director of the film also talked in a documentary from 2013 that he also directed.

But while the story is important, the movie is not that great. Alexander Skarsgård does his charismatic yet dangerous guy role, and Nat Wolff did a good job with the main character, but the rest of the plot felt either rushed, or disjointed or plain bland. It really felt like a prolonged dream sequence. I rather preferred the two actors in The Stand. The other actors had almost nothing to work with. There was very little characterisation, even for the two lead actors.

Sometimes it is hard to bring real life cases to the big screen and also make them entertaining. Perhaps there was not much to tell other than what was in the film, perhaps the respect of the author for the facts prohibited him to add the usual bull that people add to create tension, release it, bring humor, make greater than life characters out of ordinary people. In the end, though, I felt uncomfortable with the tension, disconnected from the situation and caring very little about the characters.

I don't want to give any spoilers so I'll just say this movie had the right story, the right actors, the right setting to be something special but the whole film came out shallow & flat imo. It just seemed like a paint by numbers production. The battle or military sequences could've been more broad or involved. They could've included the trials & news coverage or the impact this story had on the country or military but didn't.

When the movie ended & went to credits I said to myself: 'is that it?' Evidently it was & it just wasn't good enough imo.

This film tells the story of a young soldier who battles with himself on whether to follow the dubious orders of his sergeant.

The story is well told, as it highlights the battles of the young soldier. The intimidation by the sergeant is portrayed effectively, making the young soldier crack and fear for his own safety. It is very sad that the young soldier had to endure such an ordeal.

A24 has been proving themselves as one of the best studios out there today, but there are a few genres that they haven't dabbled much in yet. I would argue that Comedy and War are two genres that they have a slim number of films in, so I was pleasantly surprised when I heard about The Kill Team. On top of that, I love it when a movie can tell such a simple story and keep you incredibly engaged. The Kill Team absolutely fits that description. Gripping and unsettling to watch these events that happen on a daily basis somewhere in the world, here's why I believe The Kill Team is worth your time.

After young Andrew Briggman (Nat Wolff) is given his position in the war in Afghanistan, he very quickly has that shaken when his commanding officer is killed. Given a new leader in Sergeant Deeks (Alexander Skarsgård), this team must adapt to a very new practice, one in which Briggman is highly against. Although not a very violent film in nature, the subject matter had me sick to my stomach at times, just thinking about how this type of thing goes on in our daily lives. We truly live in a brutal world and this movie chooses to showcase just why that is.

Written and directed by Dan Krauss, this film is a commanding first outing for him, stating that he is very much capable of handling a full feature. Having not heard this name before the release of The Kill Team, I will be keeping an eye on his work from now on. Although simple in nature, this movie has a fantastic pace. At a mere 88 minutes, the progression of Andrew Briggman is really what stood out to me. If for nothing else, this is an independent war film that puts its characters before the action and that's nothing but commendable in my opinion.

Where this film slightly lost me and may lose others, however, is in its repetitive nature. I found there to be a few too many scenes of Briggman not liking what he's seeing and then trying to do something about it. There were a few story beats that were repeated that felt a little unnecessary. Other than that, this is a very tight, tense, and impactful little film that I was invested in from start to finish. It also didn't hurt that Skarsgård was delivering a great, slimy performance as well.

In the end, The Kill Team may not be as fantastic as I was hoping it would be, but I was still sucked in from the very first scene. As mentioned, this is a very tense film that pulls no punches in terms of telling it how it is. Although I didn't know the true story beforehand, it seemed very truthful in its storytelling. This is a very well-made war film that I definitely recommend checking out. It's now playing in a few select theatres and available to purchase and stream digitally.