In this story, I was first of all surprised by the rapid reversal of the main character, who yesterday with his own hands twisted his blood brother to hand him over to honest justice, with the faith in which he swore and served righteously, without making an exception even for a relative, extremely surprised by the fact that he was burdened by prosecutors in court and what the jury generously bestowed, immediately finding his own opinion on the oath, honor and conscience, organizing an operation to correct a judicial “mistake”, essentially declaring war on the state for which he was heroic in Iraq, precisely beating his hand in shooting.
There's a town in New York, and there's a fire station and a police station. And young men, five people, who served in the army units, will probably count. But, on this, the credibility dries up, giving way to the limitless flight of imagination of the inventors of the script of this picture, most shamelessly switching the consciousness of the main character for the sake of the coveted goal of overturning the military drama into an adventurous criminal action of the lower category, where the former cop commands a whole gang of tribesmen who suddenly dropped the weight of army epaulets.
The glorification of rebellion as a way of restoring justice enters into the clinch with the background of the life of all its participants, who are forced to anomalous reactions and no less unimaginable decisions allegedly made by them in the agony of suffering souls, without noticing, cheating on their homeland in favor of the favorable scriptwriters transition from inconvenient words to more or less simple action, rented from the catalogue-textbook, just to create a pseudo manjrazh on the eve of the last “fight” of invenit friends.
Very flat, in the cardboard style of folding books, which reeks of a clear disregard for the audience, out of the age of naive delusions, having learned to distinguish between the dignity of people, the truth of life and the delusions of a madman.
'Always True' is the story of the friendship of five guys, one of whom made a fatal mistake and ended up in prison. Oyster was unlucky that evening - during a scuffle in a bar, his opponent smashed his head and died. It so happened that the first to arrest came his half-brother Cal (Jay Courtney) – a man of principle and faithful to the letter of the law. Obviously, blood ties are good, but Cal didn't pay attention. He arrested his brother. . .
All five were preparing for a business trip to Iraq - the guys were close to the military operation and had to become the same five, forming a powerful fist. Oyster dropped out, but the squad did not notice the loss of a fighter and went to the Middle East for eight months. Upon his return, Cal found out that his brother had been given too long a sentence, the evidence against him was fabricated, and the prison guards were tortured. Cal comes up with the idea of freeing Oyster.
The idea of the director Henry Alex Rubin was clear: he planned to shoot a drama about friendship with difficult choices and emotional anguish over the committed actions. I venture to say that Rubin did it with the correction that in the center of the story a group of five adult already formed men and expect from such a group of characters inspiring and abstruse speeches is not worth it.
In any company, there is a place for phrases like ' You are my brother' or ' We are brothers' as well as in any company, friends and friends can call each other offensive words. And clearly in the process of communicating, you can say this to a street company, the topic of conversation is not the works of art stored in the Louvre. So if we talk about saturating the film with dialogue, I think we can make a discount on who the characters of the film are.
Relationships between the characters give reason to say that they will really be a mountain for each other in any situation and this is also typical for real life, where real friends are ready to come to the rescue in most cases. This is confirmed by Oyster’s situation, in which his brother Cal is going to be helped by Snowball (Arturo Castro), Milk (Bo Napp), and Jagger (Finn Wittrock). Although there is certainly an element of cunning from Jai Courtney's character. If he didn’t want his friends to help him with what he was up to, he wouldn’t have said it out loud. And so, by saying that he intended to help Oyster, Cal forced his friends to cross the line of the law, because they were complicit anyway, because they knew about his plans. . .
To be honest, the plot of the film seemed somewhat far-fetched to me, but I cannot say that it was openly unsuccessful or stupid. Henry Alex Rubin does not reveal the characters of the characters, so it is not required in principle - the main idea of the film is male friendship. The main thing is that it's been uncovered, and why Oyster was in trouble with the law before, why Cal wanted custody of his brother, it doesn't matter. More importantly, older men have remained faithful to each other after many years of friendship. And this is confirmed by their civilian life and service in the army.
Fighter film 'Always true' do not call it - it is rather a criminal drama with minor elements of realistic action.
His idea is quite simple and unpretentious, the plot is not replete with originality, but the story itself looks with interest.
But look at you. I do not impose my opinion on anyone.
The average crime-dramatic thriller “Always True” is ready to please its viewers with a good, albeit simple story, a good performance of the cast and high-quality production.
The main merit of positive impressions when viewing belongs to the competently approved caste, which perfectly reflects the depth and importance of each character. The creators carefully worked out the images of their characters not only on paper, but also in the frame, taking into account their inner world (spiritual experiences) and external indicators (style, manner of conversation, behavior, type, clothes and even hairstyles). All the characters are different, unusual and most importantly, interesting in their own way. But, unfortunately, the authors were not able to fully disclose each individually due to the limited timing (there is a certainty that initially in the script all this was).
Of course, in Hollywood about “brothers in arms” filmed a large number of different films and TV series, so here no one will be surprised by the overly patriotic attitude of the characters to their country, friendship and family. But at the same time, despite the obvious obscenity of the attitude to service, the heroes, faced with a difficult choice, still go against the system in the name of their own understanding of justice, thereby making it clear that service is service, but family / friendship is more important.
There is practically no action in the film, so you should not consider it as an action movie, but this does not diminish the importance of the picture itself, because the authors still have something to offer. This is a good crime-dramatic thriller in all its manifestations, where there are police routines, crimes, prison escape and many other interesting areas of plot development.
For director Henry Alex Rubin, this is his second full-length project. At one time, he was nominated for an Oscar for the documentary “The Killing Game”, and then shot a serious dramatic thriller “No Connection”, which although failed at the box office, but showed impressive ratings on various ratings (IMDb: 7.5) and collected many positive reviews from world film critics. In general, the production was not the worst director who was able to squeeze everything out of the budget to reveal the full potential of this story. Whether you watch it or not, the choice is yours, but if you like the trailer, enjoy watching it.
War is an extremely complex subject, and the people it touches are doubly difficult. Some believe that the conflict should be justified and fair, while others come from the opposite – any combat action in which these people are involved is by default fair. Good guys can't be wrong, can they? This paradigm also applies to cinema: brave warriors, brave fighting comrades, are usually on the side of the winners; like most films about aspects of war, the most ... unpleasant things are left behind, and the righteousness of the protagonists is unquestionable. Always True focuses on people who apply a military code of conduct to a civilian situation. It sounds unusual, but in fact, none of the above ideas receives proper development, because “Always True” is not a particularly developed drama and it is not easy to perceive it. There are no answers to the psychological questions of why former war heroes take on Solomon missions, but there is no simple insane action movie designed to ignore moral doubts. Despite the overall smoothness of the narrative and the professionalism of the shooting, “Always True” is a depressing film, unable to reveal a fundamental conflict.
Several young men are preparing to join the U.S. Marines. For now, they are training in reserve and waiting to be sent to Iraq. This is police officer Cal, his friends, as well as the younger half-brother Oyster (aka Oyster). Oyster has always had problems with the law, often loses his temper, starts out of the blue. One day, after resting at a local bar, Oyster gets into a fight over a girl, after which his rival dies. The new criminal only aggravates the case, trying to leave the city, but he is arrested by Cal. Eight months later, Cal, after serving in Iraq, decides to help his brother with the help of his combat buddies, especially against Oyster falsifies testimony.
The main theme of “Always faithful” is friendship. The name itself, derived from the motto of the Marines "Semper Fi", speaks of actions that are louder than words. But although one can have an idea about the relationship between Cal and his colleagues, one should only guess about the relationship of the protagonist to his brother. Their ties are not so much open, and the opposite principle is also noticeable: if we know something about Cal, then one can only guess about the attitude towards him from friends - these are just one-dimensional boys sung with courtyard songs.
Whatever details of Oyster's sentence are revealed as the narrative unfolds, the character committed murder anyway. Too little information is given about what kind of personality he has experienced in his life to make him a more attractive figure for the viewer. Most of the film he only resents his brother, but spends time behind the scenes. The purpose of his own freed from prison with the help of colleagues lies in the notorious combat fraternity, but here is the problem: “Always faithful” does not study the issues of team-building, emotional ties during the war, and offers only advertising American marines and reckless clichés. Instead of a fair anti-war statement, the script insists that every man must go through a war. This is done without comparing military and civilian life.
The tone of this battle fraternity drama is depressing, and the story often shies away from portraying mental and physical exhaustion after returning home from war. Emotional scars in the soul are shown in the most primitive way, although "Always True" should be praised: the script largely deals with real life. However, certain far-fetched situations overshadow the subtle storyline, which exacerbates the incredibly slow initial tempo: neither the actors’ natural chemistry nor the correct ending can balance the failed ideas of the “boy public” level with the overall predictability of the narrative.