Metacritic reviews

A riveting combat movie that aims to put viewers alongside American soldiers in the midst of one of the bloodiest battles in the long-running war, “The Outpost” takes the measure of what a few dozen men endured and finds heroism not in enemies killed but in compadres saved.

Skillfully directed by Rod Lurie, this engrossing and deeply wrenching thriller dances the same fine line as most latter-day movies that want to honor service and sacrifice, without lapsing into empty triumphalism. For the most part, The Outpost balances those competing impulses, with a canny combination of unadorned bluntness and technical finesse.

Such a film may suffer from home viewing, and yet, The Outpost represents the most exhilarating new movie audiences have been offered since the shutdown began.

The Outpost really is not a movie of wit or soaring inspirational speeches, but of no-holds-barred emotion. A story of young men in their 20s, with dreams and loved ones back home, who had the courage to risk it all for each other.

While lacking the technical virtuosity of Sam Mendes' "1917," for example, the movie nevertheless does full justice to its stirring true-life tale of the 2009 Battle of Kamdesh — despite an obviously low budget.

The Outpost evolves from what initially feels like a collection of war-movie commonplaces, highlighting crude-talking soldiers in a bad situation, into something more complex and illuminating.

An engrossing and immersive look at an isolated battle in “America’s Longest War,” a representative bloody stalemate in a country where that’s the best most of those fighting there can hope for.

The difficulty here, as with many a modern war film, is tone. There is an impetus to honor these soldiers while also criticizing the framework that led them into what is essentially a deathtrap in the middle of Afghanistan. Screenwriters Eric Johnson and Paul Tamasy do their damndest to thread the needle, but the results do wear a bit thin.

Yet despite the interchangability of some of the characters, the last half of The Outpost — in which the two-day Battle of Kamdesh is condensed into an hour of horror — is a technical marvel, as the soldiers come under an attack as relentless as a tsunami.

The Outpost is a visceral battle picture but little more.