This was a movie that I had actually seen on last Saturday evening, but due to a Sunday brunch I had with my wife (more on that in her blog) and also feeling a little bit tired, I did not write my views of the film until today. It was only playing in the smaller cinema chains in Indonesia, so our options were a bit limited and we decided to see this one in Plaza Semanggi. Well what was the movie about? You can see more below.
Brief Story Line
Story was told in the year 2007 when the US declared that they have "won" the Iraq war and they were in the midst of leaving the country. Two men team of a sniper Shane Matthews (WWE wrestler John Cena - 12 Rounds, Trainwreck etc) with his spotter Allen "Ize" Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson - Kick-Ass, Nocturnal Animals etc) were some of the few US armies who were still there. They were assigned to visit a pipeline construction location where it appeared to have been attacked as the workers and even some army were killed.
After patiently waited for more than 20 hours and yet nothing happened, Shane decided to walk to the location and investigate directly. However, apparently there was another sniper who seemed to be waiting as well, since Shane was suddenly shot. Ize immediately ran towards Shane who was immobilized, but he was also being shot at. Ize was able to run and hide behind ruins of wall but not before he was shot in his right knee and lost a lot of blood.
With the condition seemed bleak, as Shane seemed to be really hurt and seemed to lost his consciousness, Ize tried to ask for help through the radio. After a while, the radio finally worked and he managed to contact someone who was ready to help but he had to wait for few hours. So Ize had to fight against his pain and dehydration and try his best to keep Shane alive with the possibility of the sniper shooting them at anytime with his very good marksmanship. What would happen to Ize and Shane and could they survive from this attack? Find them all in this war thriller movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This movie was having a rather short duration as it only had running time of less than 1.5 hours. The main storyline was rather simple and only had 3 main characters. The location of the movie never go beyond the dessert and Ize's location behind the wall, hence the title. Now I could not help but having feeling of similarities to another movie that I just saw previous week, i.e. MINE which was also about snipers caught in the middle of the dessert and were trapped in the location. The only difference was in Mine, they were caught for more than 2 days in a land mine, while in here they were caught in an open place with sniper ready to kill them.
I believe that this movie can also be categorized as a cat and mouse type where the mouse (in this case Ize and Shane) were caught in a trap and were in the "mercy" of the cat. The main attraction would be Aaron Taylor-Johnson's portrayal as the "mouse" with his frustration and all kinds of emotions he would have felt in such situation. The thing is that, it was not a really fast paced movie and there were times that it became a bit slow that resulted to feeling a bit of boredom (I even think that I dozed off a bit at one point of time, though to be fair it was probably because I also felt tired).
Now what I loved about this movie was actually the intensity in the beginning and also at the end. The ending was quite unique and surprising, though it may not relate to some audience. There was not a lot of special effect in this kind of movie, but it did have nice sound effects where the blazing sound of the shootings were amazing. One thing to take note was that the movie had lots of cursing using the "F" word and it is definitely not suitable for kids. It was categorized for 17+ in Indonesian cinemas, so be reminded for parents not to bring your children to see this one.
So if you are looking for a rather short war thriller movie with very few main characters and emphasizing on the "cat and mouse" psychological thing, then this movie might be a good option. However, if you do not like this kind of movie or you prefer a full action war movie, then this one definitely not your thing. The choice is yours.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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