Recon

It's Italy in WW2. Four American soldiers witness their Sergeant killing a seemingly innocent civilian. The group encounters an old man pulling a cart who tells them about a group of nearby German soldiers. As they head off to recon their enemy, they fight among themselves and grow suspicious of the old man. It's a small war indie and it remains a small war indie. The characters feel small. The actors are small. The production is small. It's all very small.

It looked like a decent film and decided to watch this first before checking the reviews here. Sometimes I don't want to be biased beforehand. But after loads of yapping and crying by 4 guys on a pointless mission I was starting to wonder if anything exciting was ever going to happen. Then I read the reviews and like one user said it's like the Blair Witch Project and he is absolutely correct. 10 star review from a one review account is par for the course now. Mostly this film is walk in the country and I'm sure not many viewers are going to be impressed by that. In short, the bad reviews are warranted, just a bad story to choose and bad directing and bad.... well you get the picture.

This was simply a long and boring story about pretty much nothing, with terrible directing and ridiculous faded dizzying flashbacks. The 95 minute runtime felt like 3 hours. There were so many plot and technical issues, a Cub Scout would have better evasive measures knowledge when someone is shooting at you. This film needed to be a short - no more than 30-40 mins, to make any impact. What little impact it had, was absorbed by the boredom and highly predictable story-line. The score was too much for this film, but thankfully not as overbearing and out of place than most B-grade films. Acting was decent, especially from Viking's Alexander Ludwig. The cinematography and colors were very impressive, and the only redeeming qualities of this film. It's a generous 4/10 from me.

This is most definitely not a soldier's movie. It's a movie written by someone who creates an unbelievable world of war and soldiers and is directed and produced by people with too few funds and not a whole lot of understanding about film making.

It's a movie where a reconnaissance patrol always walks down the middle of roads or fields all the while talking loudly or shouting. Oh, and with lit cigarettes. Stealth was not their long suit.

It's a movie where young men in 1943 constantly swear and use phrases from 2019. Where a commanding officer orders that an unarmed civilian be shot and orders it in front of about 20 witnesses.

It's all simply unbelievable. And it's poorly made and made on the cheap.

I won't waste any more or your time. Just a friendly warning, don't view this thing no matter how desperate you are for something to do. It's that bad.

It's not a blow your socks off action war epic. It's a small, dialogue driven suspense story. Most of the performances are very well done. There are a few questionable editing choices and some drawn out sequences. But in my opinion it's not as bad as most of these reviewers are saying it is.