I had heard about Iko Uwais going to be in a Hollywood movie with Mark Wahlberg for quite some time. Not until few weeks ago that I finally found out the movie would be playing in Indonesian theaters in the month of August. I thought it would be playing at the same time (if not earlier) with the US premiere date but we had to wait for few days until it was finally shown on 21 August. Not sure of the reason behind the date chosen, but better late than never. So let us move on to the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Set in a fictional country in South East Asia, a US Black Ops group called Overwatch led by agent James Silva (Mark Wahlberg - All the Money in the World, Patriots Day etc) with his team that consisted among others Alice (Lauren Cohan - The Walking Dead TV series etc), Sam Snow (Ronda Rousey - The Expendables 3 etc) and Douglas (Carlo Alban) were stationed there to retrieve some dirty bombs. An informant Li Noor (Iko Uwais - Beyond Skyline, The Raid etc) who claimed to have information on the location of all the bombs, came to the US embassy and asked for asylum in exchange for the info.
However, the government of the country seemed intent on arresting Li Noor. So Silva's team was assigned to bring Li Noor to a location where an airplane would extract him, which was located 22 miles from the embassy. With the help from their mobile head quarter team led by agent nicknamed Mother (John Malkovich - Bullet Head, In the Line of Fire etc) who was giving the air support and intel, Silva and the rest of them went through the whole 22 miles with the chase from the endless army of the government. Things were further complicated by the mysterious presence of Russian army who were watching over them.
So could Overwatch finished their mission? Why was the Russian involved? Find them all in this action thriller movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Well this movie did not really lived up to my expectations. When I read the synopsis of the story, I felt it was going to be a thrilling and suspenseful action movie throughout the whole duration, and filled with nonstop very cool action sequence. Unfortunately it only half delivered. The plot of the movie was totally confusing with a chaotic sense everywhere, and Mark Wahlberg's character here was very uninteresting. His constant use of rubber band on his hand really annoyed my wife, and getting angry all the time did not seem to suit him. Not to mention the under use of Ronda Rousey's fighting skill, although Lauren Cohan was surprisingly very agile and did not seem out of place. I guessed her years of experience battling zombies in The Walking Dead really played off.
The only thing that actually could salvage this movie was the appearance of Iko Uwais. His fight scenes (which I understand were co-choreographed by him and few other people) were all amazing. There might not be as much of these fight scenes as I would have hoped for since he had to share them with bigger stars, but he did have quite a lot of dialogues in here (a lot more than his previous Hollywood movies such as Beyond Skyline or Star Wars: The Force Awakens). I thought that Iko Uwais had made quite an impression in Hollywood and perhaps his appearance here would make him more renowned and he would get better opportunities in future.
The special effects, explosion effects and the violent shootout were mostly nicely done to my opinion (the movie had R rating so it should be for adults and not suitable for children). With the Dolby Atmos sound effects, the movie's action sequence felt more alive and really added to the suspense. I said earlier that the story was really a mess, which was something that I quite seldom complained for an action movie. Problem with this movie was because the pace did not feel naturally fast, in fact I felt that we were forced to feel rush by the constant angry complains of Mark Wahlberg throughout the movie. Plus the overly long & "trying too hard to make it sophisticated part" before the deadly 22 miles trip started was a bit too much and unfortunately made me a bit impatient. Even my wife felt pretty bored and felt sleepy in earlier part. It was very confusing seeing the director Peter Berg to make such a mess considering he had directed some good movies like Deepwater Horizon, The Lone Survivor, Friday Night Lights and few others.
Again I do not mind seeing action movies with a bit underdeveloped characters but when you got too many of them, it begged the question why they were used in the first place since they would never leave an impression anyway. From what I read in the internet, Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg were thinking of making this into a trilogy (which explained the ending), but I sadly doubt it would happen since the commercial performance was not that extraordinary to justify it. And I think Indonesian audience who saw this movie most probably did only because there was Iko Uwais in it. I do not think they would blindly defend it as an awesome film either. Btw, there were quite frequent use of Indonesian languages here that sounded like fun and obviously to attract the Indonesian audience, although Uwais' character name of Li Noor did not sound native. Oh, there was no mid or post end credit scene in here in case you are wondering.
Anyway for an action movie really without thinking, this would definitely fit the criteria. But if you prefer a better action movie with a bit proper storyline or a bit more interesting character, then this might not suit you. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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