Right now, there’s not much to watch in theaters, and I decided to go to the Mercenary with Chris Pine in the title role.
Unfortunately, with an interesting message and a well-written drama of the main character, the film is absolutely not catchy.
If we talk about fighting scenes (of which there are only 3 for the entire film), these are absolutely standard shootings, which are absolutely not surprising.
The acting here is just normal, Chris Pine copes well with the role of a broken and abandoned person, but no more. There is nothing to say about the other characters, they almost do not play a role in the plot and they are not given much time.
I don’t remember the music at all, a couple of days after watching it, I can’t even remember if it was there (for sure it was, but I can’t even remember a piece of any melody). Music (or its absence) should create the mood and atmosphere of the scene, here it was not felt at all.
Editing in both battle scenes and dialogues is common. And this is not a drawback, but combined with the lack of expressiveness of other aspects, this routine and ingenuity is especially striking, because you want to find at least something to cling to in this film.
The most interesting part of this film, which causes at least some emotional connection with the film. This is the story of the main character and the message it carries.
The story here tells about a man who was psychologically traumatized as a child by his military father. And on the one hand, he looks like his father, and he followed in his footsteps and became a military man. On the other hand, he does everything to avoid being like him and return to his family (because he is still angry with his father that he did not return to him). And as an adult, our hero can do absolutely nothing but fight. And his own country (the U.S.) just throws him out of the military without even leaving a pension so he can live on. And all this despite the fact that he is a hero and has combat awards. And after all this, our hero is forced to go to a private military company (which is unofficially subordinate to American power) to perform dirty tasks that the regular army cannot perform.
Here lies the understandable drama of the character, as simple as everything in this film, but despite this, causing an emotional response.
In addition, there is a clear message about the US army. The film criticizes the attitude of the army to its veterans who fought in hot spots, as if they were to blame for their plight, and not the country that sent them to war. It also criticizes the US policy of interfering in conflicts and the affairs of other states that do not concern them at all. It's an interesting message, and it's especially cool to see it in a U.S.-made film. Apart from that, the film does not offer anything interesting.
5.5 out of 10
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