“Ambush” Movie Review

 

“Ambush”

Movie Review

 

A crew of young elite commandos, led by Captain Drummond, are tasked with gathering highly sensitive material that could alter the course of the war. Mark Burman directed and co-wrote the movie "Ambush," which stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Aaron Eckhart, and Connor Paolo.

 

Ambush is the latest film to attempt to mainstream one of the most divisive events in American history, the Vietnam War. General Drummond (Aaron Eckhart) dispatches Special Forces Captain Mora (Gregory Sims) to a remote firebase to retrieve a binder containing the names and locations of Vietnamese operatives. The Viet Cong attack and steal the binder before he can return it to headquarters. This irritates General Drummond, who orders its retrieval at all costs. The problem is that the only troops he has are the engineers under Corporal Ackerman, played by Connor Paolo, who are building the base.

He does have two non-engineers: Miller, a tracker, and Crawford, a second member of the Special Forces. On the other hand, if Crawford had overheard their chat, Mora might be less inclined to believe him. Ambush stands apart from other tactics by taking place primarily underground in the Viet Cong's network of tunnels.  That's only been used as a setting once before, in The Tunnel Rats by none other than Uwe Boll.

This allows the film to develop a claustrophobic atmosphere and focus more on suspense and fear of booby traps, a tripwire that releases live scorpions, stake pits, and so on. Which is a good thing because, like most low- to mid-budget films. The number of standup battle scenes in Ambush is limited. It also means that by keeping the big names above ground, they can limit their screen time.

The two above-ground battle scenes are fine, but the film's low budget shines through during the attack on the base. They're clearly shooting around a lack of extras and a lack of budget to show much in the way of explosions. Ambush works best when staging small-scale skirmishes inside the tunnels, taking advantage of the small spaces to compensate for the lack of large set pieces.

Sadly, a large portion of that time underground is lost on sequences of individuals whining about getting lost or walking in circles. This quickly becomes grating, and the majority of them would have been better left out of the movie. Ambush could easily afford to do this.

Also, it weirdly makes an effort to have the audience care about Drummond and Mora, despite the fact that they are prepared to bury their own troops alive if necessary. Ackerman is portrayed as being weak and immature while being the one who takes the risks and completes the tasks. Ackerman is the one who gets to tell us how much fiber is in an MRE. And, as the film comes to a close, the final shot is of Drummond gazing pensively into the camera rather than at the few survivors at the camp.

Ambush is another example of a good idea ruined by a bad script, with mostly unlikable characters and some really painful dialogue.

WATCH THE REVIEW VIDEO FOR MORE...