Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Writer/director: Matthew Hope, Defiant Screen Entertainment.
Cast: Sylvia Hoeks, Gbenga Akinnagbe, William Fichtner, Milo Gibson.
Here’s an intense action thriller that takes the war on terror to the streets of London as a team of Special Ops agents try to take down a terrorist.
Credit can be given rightly to writer-director Hope (The Vanguard, The Veteran) who mostly evades the banal factor when relaying a tale of combating between mercenaries, CIA agents and terrorists.
The title is beguiling, but the film’s storyline is not unfamiliar. Veteran actor Fichtner (as Brennan) is very good, and then there’s the acting debut by Milo, Mel Gibson’s son.
After getting briefed on his new assignment by CIA minder Leigh (Hoeks), Collins boards a plan to England to ‘reunite with longtime colleague Brennan and introduces his mutually unwilling new partner’ Samuelson (Akinnagbe).
It’s Samuelson who holds out against the idea that the men are bounty hunters, but declares, “I’m a shadow warrior!”
Described as a “messed-up war junkie”, Brennan advises Collins to go home and take the opportunity to spend time with his family. It’s obvious he’s avoiding returning ‘home’ to a wife he’s deserted and a child he’s never met.
Collins is introduced with an action sequence set in Morocco. It’s obvious that this toughened Afghan War vet and Special Ops warrior has been affected by his work. It doesn’t take long for his fellow team members to notice Collins has seen better days.
Collins is recruited to take down McKnight (Eliot Cowan), a disloyal CIA traitor who’s dangerously close to securing a weapon of mass destruction.
Blu-ray viewing crisply negates the stoic exercise in watching the prescribed and undistinguished example of its genre.
Tell us the name of the lead actor’s father, and you could be one of three winners of All The Devil’s Men DVDs. Entries should be sent to [email protected] by next Monday, 18 February 2019. Names of the winners will be announced in Frank Cassidy’s PS-sssst…! column next week.
