Section 8

An unrustling narrative, devoid of any worthy substance, relying on the expected norms of the genre, bringing nothing new, or original to the screen.

Packed up with the fight, war, and action celebrities, missing Arnold or Sylvester-type charismatic and charming characters, makes the hole thing a bore.

The film starts with an unrealistic fight sceen from Afghanistan where the Afghan soldiers speak in the middle eastern dialect, instead of the Afgan Arabic. The US moves into the neighborhood knowing it's a setup, in humvees with all windows open letting the fresh air and bullets in. Ultimately, getting many killed.

Usually, viewers find predictability in scenarios where many other films explored the same thing with a number of similar outcomes. This is one of those you will say I knew this was going to happen.

There is the basis of a decent film here, yes it has all been done before but the opening half hour or so is all pretty engaging (although you do feel they just let Mickey Rourke do and say whatever he wanted).

Then it started to get a bit silly, and then very, very silly. To the point it is barely making sense and they are having to have characters have one sided conversations on telephones to gloss over plot confusion - It just lost all credibility for the sake of slightly better writing.

That said it is clearly made on a budget and it goes well to hide some of this, clearly the whole film is shot in L. A. but watching it does a good job of making out that its characters travel around the US and beyond. The action scenes are fine too, sometimes a bit confused to follow but this actually gives it a bit more authenticity, I felt.

The cast are pretty good overall though two or three are so one dimensional, due to the writing, that they don't come off so well. Its a shame the last half hour or so wasn't as well made as the first and that it feels it needs to have plot twist after plot twist.

Ultimately its better and has a lot more to offer than you might expect, even if it is a bit disappointing overall.

I'm giving this a 4 to be generous to the cast and production crew. Excellent job as usual.

In fact everything about this story is the usual: a military acquaintance; a plot that becomes more senseless each scene; long, long flashbacks to show the hero's emotions; hand-to-hand attacks during gunfights;and plot inconsistencies that give the impression that a producer's 15-year-old son wrote a script and Dad decided to encourage him... and had the bucks.

Verdict: AVOID. Despite the cast and production quality, I found this movie completely forgettable and an unfortunate waste of time, even though I fast-forwarded through all the my-dead-wife-and-kid-poor-me scenes.

Hi, guys I am still watching the movie...if you noticed in the starting scene Mosul - Afghanistan shows up.

I heard Mosul was in IRAQ correct me ?

So I just was wondering how could such a mistake can happen.

However it's not surprising.

The movies I did not finish yet however it's interesting I am watching now.

The brutal murder was so abrupt and immediate and the people who killed the family did not show any mercy and killed innocent family for no reason or may be frivolous reason. And right on the spot the hero took revenge and the villain was willing to be killed the story so far is a bit lagging but see it it could make sense later.

I was sure about giving 5 stars until the last third of the movie. This is a very old-fashioned action movie, peppered with geil emotions and shows some artistic blend. In the '80s, this would have been a very good movie. In the '90s, it would still compete with some good Steven Segal and van Damme movies. But we are in 2022. Dolph Lundgren and poor Mickey Rourke should already stay away from cinema... but I guess they still live in the '90s at heart.

There are a couple of big plot-holes, and there are a few silly moments. E.g. If one is out of bullets, then just gets in the car to take a long trip, how come that when gets out of the car, the magazine is again full?

Or: you sit in the Toyota to catch the bad guy who just left with his GMC. And you just literally have two red wires hanging out underneath the dashboard, so within a few seconds you already have a running car. You don't even need the ignition key with the radio chip that is needed for a Toyota to communicate wirelessly with the onboard CPU to start the car (the so-called anti-theft system).

This movie would have worked in the '80s but not in 2022, sorry.

So in conclusion: There was some potential in this movie, there were some good watchable parts in it. There were some plot twists, yes. And the lead actor is quite good. Really. He did a great job, and would deserve something better in the future.

But the rest of the actors were really bad. The whole story is a big cliché that you must have seen several times.

My conclusion is that you don't lose anything if you don't watch it. This movie is a grain of salt less than entertaining.