Reno
Sep 9, 2016
5/10
A modern warfare and its effect on the family of a person who involved in it.
I like this director's films, because he writes the screenplay for all his films and each were so different with cleverness in narration. Sadly, this is the first one I didn't like. It was very similar to the 'Eye in the Sky', but came before than that and with a stretched storyline. It centres on Thomas, a pilot for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) stationed at an air base in Las Vegas, but fighting combat in the middle-east. Every day he's bombing at the terrorist makes him quite uneasy when the innocents get killed. And on the other hand, failing to handle his family with his professional distress brings more complication and how it ends are the rest of the film.
In my view I think the overly sentimentalised great film concept destroyed it. The emotions work fine in the war themes, but here it gives a wrong idea over battle against the terror outfits. Because of a combat officer with the sympathetic mind, that considered as the weakness of a soldier. So it all begins with the writing, if one wants to make a war film, a modern warfare, relying on this kind of storyline brings only anti sentiments from the soldier's perspective and we the people who love our nation.
I understand when the main film characters are not physically present at the actual battleground, not easy to draw a good story out of it. And due to the complete absent of a soldier getting injured in a crossfire, they wend for different kind of emotional dealing. The only thing that made me sense was the sexual abuse parts and how it was taken care later. Good actors, good direction, but a weak story and shortfall of some good thrill moments makes it an average.
5/10