Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Peter Berg, Roadshow Entertainment.
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, John Malkovich, Lauren Cohan, Iko Uwais.
Once again director Berg (Patriots Day, Deepwater Horizon, Lone Survivor) teams up with Wahlberg, but this time he has gone from honouring all-American heroes to a work of fiction.
Here we meet James Silva (Wahlberg), an agent of the CIA’s elite ‘Ground Branch’, with the daunting task of safely moving a person with crucial information. The mission is urgent and dangerous.
The paramilitary team called Overwatch must transport a foreign intelligence ‘asset’ from an American embassy in southeast Asia to an airfield for extraction – a distance of 22 miles. Silva and the soldiers soon find themselves in a race against time as the city’s military, police and street gangs close in to reclaim the asset.
The movie opens with a scene in a suburban cul-de-sac at a colonial house inside which some Russians are up to no good. It’s obvious: a remotely located crew, lead by James Bishop (Malkovich, aka ‘Mother’), is using drones for surveillance. What’s more, they are also monitoring the vital signs of James and the crew.
All should have gone according to plan, but it does not. Obviousy a lot does happen in 22 miles. A lot of gunfire exchange is the action in this spy/military thriller.
As focus moves to somewhere resembling Indonesia, there’s a noteworthy performance from Iko Uwais (Headshot, The Raid, Triple Threat) as Li Noor, a local special forces officer who is aligned with the Americans against his own government. He refuses to hand over some crucial, time-sensitive information unless he gets safe passage to the US.
