Hollywood director Doug Liman continues to confound Hollywood with his hit-and-miss career, and he now has not one but two films about to hit Kiwi cinemas.
Next week he's back with Tom Cruise in a new film, American Made, and this week, a war thriller called The Wall.
British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson and former WWE superstar John Cena team up here as Isaac and Matthews, American soldiers tasked with protecting the US rebuild of post-war Iraq.
Hidden above a pipeline strewn with the bodies of murdered contractors, they are playing a waiting game with an Iraqi sniper. That wait will soon be over.
Soon Isaac is pinned, wounded, behind a crumbling wall, losing a battle of wits with the sniper, who always seems at least 10 steps ahead.
Like the tagline says: "This isn't war; it's a game." The question is, will we care who wins?
I really loved what Liman did with Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow, but not so much with The Wall.
A simple enough high-pressure premise had a few tense moments but ultimately was just too one-dimensional and not nearly compelling enough for the big screen. It did earn a little more love for the ending.
Two-and-a-half stars.
Newshub.
