I watched this movie the other day and while I didn’t have high expectations I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. I was however left with a couple of questions.
I found the tone of the film changed markedly towards the end, it begins with a fairly shades of grey approach where both sides are pretty much as bad as the other. During the initial scene the leader is implied to be corrupt and decadent (the gold watch) and that he gained power by the very same methods used by the rebels themselves and that he has used his power to oppress their people. However once his son appears it abruptly shifts tone and he is portrayed as a fearless and noble leader of the Nigerian people, a civilised democrat as opposed to the barbaric rebels. And I don’t think this was just supposed to be the view of his son.
In addition there is a scene near the beginning where the newly installed rebel government is debating what to do about the impending sanctions and finally decide that they will turn to the Americans. This scene seemed to set up a plot thread that never actually went anywhere, thats the last time we saw anything outside the refugee group and the rebels that were chasing them.
To my unexpert eye I found the combat scenes to be very well done, unlike most Hollywood movies the American soldiers were shown to be brave, well trained and well equipped but very far from invulnerable. I was on the edge of my seat during the last scenes. Which is why it was so disappointing when they showed the airstrike…I do have a bit of knowledge of aviation and the fact that they used air-to-air missile armed F18’s to conduct the ground-attack mission resulting in a somehow napalm style effect totally destroyed my suspension of disbelief. Annoying because with five minutes of research they could have made that scene accurate.
Overall though I found the movie interesting, tense and surprisingly moving in places.
Thoughts, opinions. 