this was my platonic ideal of a film for the first 20-30 minutes, but by the time we are introduced to the antagonists, its noxious values become unavoidable. not only that, but the filmmaking completely falls into standard, direct-to-video B-movie hackjob. whereas the first act has enough tension and novelty to keep us moving along, the director’s cheap tricks get very old very fast. this film is bad to look at.
call me old fashioned—you know i’m a 90s kid, i grew up on the Bourne series, where even amidst all the double-dealings and characterization, Blackrock was still unambiguously the villain. an example of just how nauseatingly sycophantic this film is, is the portrayal of the mercenaries as good guys. there’s a part towards the end, when the grovelling toad that directed this production decided to throw away any semblance of dramatic tension in order to satisfy his own imperialist, fetishistic bloodlust. the invincible sniper rifle blasts through all barriers, an unstoppable fist of God wielded by immortal heroes for whom danger has no meaning (and whose presence is completely excised from the sequence, nerfing any suspense). God, in this sense, is the American military industrial complex.