Director Isaac Florentine's follow-up to his cult hit, U.S. Seals 2 revisits
America's military with more Hong Kong style action and martial arts. Budgeted at a mere $1.3 million, Special Forces manages to push the limit on action
filmmaking within a grimly patriotic story set in the shadow of the bloody
Bosnian-Serbian conflict.
Although unrelated to U.S. Seals 2, Marshall R. Teague returns, this time to
headline the film as Major Don Harding, in addition to acting as military advisor. He's the real deal when it comes to portraying a no-nonsense military officer. His mostly non-emotive persona, echoed by hisfellow team members offers a
nice stabilizing force to ground the stylized action.
Wendy Teller (Daniella Deutscher) is an American photo-journalist in
theEastern European country of Moldavia who stumbles upon local military
forces executing villagers. The commander is a veteran of the Bosnian War
named Hasib (Eli Danker) who captures the woman and attempts to exchange
her for captured war criminals. Its a bad call as the only response he gets is Major Harding and a team of Army special forces flown in to rescue her. Once
down, they settle in to discover her whereabouts with the aid of a local
schoolteacher and a seasoned SAS operative named Talbot (Scott Adkins). A
bitter, past encounter with Hasib fuels Harding's desire for revenge as well as to save the journalist. But after an attempted rescue is thwarted, his team members are either killed or captured. Armed with lethal martial arts ability, Talbot steps in to assist Harding in completing the mission.
Director Isaac Florentine has toned down the stylized action for this film while retaining the excitement of previous efforts. His credits include directing 70 episodes of the popular children's action series for television, the Power
Rangers. This fact and his love for modern Japanese action filmmaking in
general has led to his past use of exaggerated sound effects and camera work
suitable for genre filmmaking, but often at odds when paired with real-world
scenarios. Initially, martial arts combat is used sparingly and with quicker results in neutralizing targets, more in keeping with real combat training. This limited display of hand-to-hand combat may come as a bit of a disappointment to some, but the film adequately compensates in two ways. First, there is relative
newcomer Scott Adkins, who plays the Special Air Service operative. He's
appeared in smaller roles in films such as Extreme Challenge (2001) and The
Highbinders (AKA The Medallion). This could be considered his first breakout
performance as a martial arts star and an impressive one at that. This leads to the second compensation for action buffs, the end fight. You know its coming. The lead villain's sidekick, who does little else throughout the film is present for the sole purpose of taking on Adkins. This scene is outstanding and features the highly competent choreography of Akihiro Noguchi, another Power Rangers
veteran. But this is no kid's stuff. Scott's kicking ability and range of motion are outstanding. The fight is fierce, extended, and only briefly interrupted by
Teague's less potent, but solid brawl with Eli Danker. There may be more
gunplay and explosions than anything else, but Adkins' two or three fight scenes are good enough to warrant martial arts fans taking more than a passing
interest. Any way you slice it, Florentine, himself a martial artist, is clearly committed to filming some of the best martial arts scenes outside of Hong Kong. Its all the more impressive given that he's doing it on a small budget and in an industry not always receptive to allowing quality martial arts in their films.
Special Forces also scores points for it's ambitions. The film begins with a
sobering mass execution of innocent civilians by machine gun. To know that
similar acts have actually occurred in numerous countries and in many conflicts, especially in recent years, sets this film apart from your standard independent action film. This was written after 9/11 and was originally meant to be set in Afghanistan, putting it in touch with the fight against terrorism. Due to a change of plans, location shooting moved to Lithuania and the film's backdrop became ethnic cleansing. The authentic setting and the assistance of the local military further raise the scale of the film.
Depicting the role of America's special forces to any degree of authenticity
presents many challenges and this cast and crew surmount some of them. But
in the end, Special Forces remains a stylized action movie first by giving way to heroic fights and even bigger fireballs. For perspective, the Navy Seals actioner Tears of the Sun starring Bruce Willis shares the same fate on a $70 million
budget. The small budget is a limiting factor, but quality fight choreography, decent acting, and a notable action performance by Scott Adkins makes this
effort Florentine's best yet.
