Afghan Luke

"It's a war, my job is to report what I see." When journalist Luke Benning (Stahl) is on a job in Afghanistan he catches a Canadian sniper cutting the fingers off of his taliban kills. When his paper refuses to print the story he quits and returns to the country to investigate further but soon finds that the fighting and tension has become much worse then when he left. There have been a recent influx of "embedded reporter" movies lately but they have all to this point been entertaining. While this was also a good movie and kept me interested it is basically another version of movies like "5 Days To War" or the "Bang Bang Club" (both of which I thought were better). Stahl does a good job and the movie is tense and thought provoking but like so many movies lately it seems to just copy everything else that is being released. I did like this one but "Bang Bang Club" was a better version. Overall, a movie worth watching but a new idea was needed to make it stand out. I give it a B-.

Is this movie worth seeing? It might be. It helps us to understand what our people are going through in a war that doesn't meet any of the traditional definitions. Mateen gives Luke an important quote which essentially means "There are no enemies. Only future allies." The reverse is also true.

And the people are poor and have to do what it takes to get by. Someone is making billions from the drugs, but not these people, and they resent being told what to do by outsiders.

This isn't a comedy, but for those who prefer comedy, there's just enough to make the movie tolerable. The quirky characters are enjoyable. Mateen, who is mostly comic relief, has a chance to be more than that when he experiences a tragedy.

It's not exactly family friendly, with numerous instances of the sound going out and a character's mouth blurred, middle fingers blurred (I assume), and the reality of war. For a movie about war, though, this is not that violent. I actually saw the fourth "Rambo" movie the day I saw this, and that was far worse.

It's not a classic, but maybe if you like war, it's something worth seeing.

Good story at the start but more boring at the end I had dream a bigger scene for Colin Cunningham he is so great he can do a better character there

I know this is fiction, but if you're going to have a movie embedded within an historical context, at least attempt to make that context somewhat accurate, or at least believable to anyone with even a limited knowledge of the event/events. I had to turn this off after 15 minutes there were so many inaccuracies.

The two things that did seem accurate.

1. It looked like it could be Afghanistan.

2. His guide was getting high.

Not accurate;

1. Snipers are not in four-man teams firing from moving vehicles. 2. There are no tent-bars in Afghanistan, much less those with dancing white women. Alcohol is against the law, and while I am sure that alcohol is smuggled in, it's abuse is not flaunted because it is illegal. 3. What newspaper has ever suppressed a story that denigrates soldiers?

Answer... none. The typical tact is to exaggerate every infraction and try to instigate it into some Muslim outrage and retaliation.

Let's welcome back the director of "Trailer Park Boys" Mike Clattenberg for what I believe is his second full length feature film and quiet a good one at that.

"Afghan Luke" stars a bunch of incredibly talented young actors/actresses my personal favorite of course Nick Stahl along with Stephen Lobo and Nicholas Wright. It's a drama that follows Luke Benning(Stahl) and the story he is attempting to write and prove about Canadian solider mutilating corpses in Afghanistan during the war. After initially being rejected Luke quits his paper to return to Afghanistan with his best friend Thom played by N.Wright where they attempt to gain proof of the story by heading across the country in search of the evidence.

Well what can I say, I suppose I will start with the cinematography the film is shot beautifully I believe in parts of British Columbia but had such great authenticity and really made you feel part of the journey. The dialog was very cleverly written along with some great comedic timing, everyone owns there roles, I was surprised to find all the cast were either American's or Canadians and with a multitude of dialects and accents throughout the film it was performed successfully, Nick stole the show leading us down the road the film ultimately takes.

On a limited budget a solid project raising questions and answers on war was carried out very well. Only thing missing was a good musical score which could have accompanied the film, and it was a little slow in it's build up. Warning alert to those easily offended there is a bit of drug use and plenty of heavy language throughout the film, but most is in context with the storytelling. If you are looking for a unique take on a journalistic point of view of the war this is much better then recent films "The Bang Bang Club" and "5 Days Of War" if your a fan of Nick like I am, it's one worth a viewing.