Director: Jesse V. Johnson
Year: 2021
Country: USA/France/Kazakhstan/Belarus
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Action (War)
Plot:
Deep undercover in the Nazi ranks, a French secret agent discovers that the Nazi officer she was assigned to get close to has stolen a cache of gold and plans to use it for his own means. Covertly stealing the gold and hiding it away for herself, she is discovered and branded a traitor by her peers who leave her in the hands of the Nazis. Several years later, she comes across an American battalion of troops also in search of the gold supply and reluctantly teams up to try to recover it, unaware of the Nazi troop headed by her former target also storming the area where they’re searching and leading to a frenetic fight for survival against the overwhelming odds against them.
Review:
Overall, this is a pretty enjoyable if simplistic genre effort. The main fact here that carries this through are some of the major Action scenes strung out throughout the film, keeping this one highly enjoyable and energetic. Relying on period-accurate firepower in the form of assault rifles, machine guns, and pistols, these scenes of combat are generally well-choreographed and kinetic which manage to highlight the desperation of the situation quite nicely. With the brutality enhanced with the use of realistic bullet-heads and practical on-set effects, the fighting here is quite nice as there’s a lot to like with the first ambush on the transport convoy or the blazing shootouts in the fateful cemetery where the film really picks up. Considering that these are valued mainly by the storyline conceits about who’s manipulating who and where the gold is stashed that adds a dramatic turn to the activity going on around them as well as the tidbits of empathy injected into the characters leading up to a satisfying finale, this comes off as quite fun in the proper mindset.
That leads to the main overarching fault of the film which stems from the overly-complex series of storylines at play for something that should’ve never been this complex. The fact that there’s so much going on, including the secrecy surrounding her mission to infiltrate the Nazis in the first place, the hatred of the rest of the Resistance towards her for branding her a traitor under completely asinine reasons, and the multilayered series of plots surrounding getting everyone into the cemetery for the final conflict makes this one meander quite a bit at times. While it’s fine to stop the action in order to propel the reasoning behind it all in the form of these storylines, it takes little effort to see that injecting so much into the film makes it drag at points where a far zippier and more charging pace would’ve been far more beneficial, especially once the duplicity has been uncovered and the general comes roaring back into the film. This can make for some troublesome viewing at points for certain viewers but isn’t a detrimental issue.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally fun action effort that comes off with a lot to like about it due to a fine series of action scenes and enough emotional resonance to offset the complicated storyline and offset pace, this one is quite enjoyable for what it is. Give this a chance if you’re more of a fan of these low-budget direct-to-video Action films or the creative crew involved, while those turned off by the style or approach should heed caution.
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