GHOST SOLDIER – Official Trailer | (4K) Starring Jim Caviezel<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nPOSITIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the latest slice of vigilante justice doesn’t go down as smoothly satisfying as expected, there are some compelling elements to the execution of ‘Ghost Soldier’ that at least manages to maintain the attention of the audience throughout an 85-minute engagement, beginning with the intensely imposing screen presence of Jim Caviezel lending such ruthlessness and resiliency to the character’s restless thirst for vengeance. As Fitz, Caviezel certainly looks the part of a take-no-shit protector of the innocent, with an unflinching menacing stare that burns holes through the armies of antagonists sent to silence him, but also a tactical kind of physicality that feels authentic as a result of Green Beret-turned-screenwriter Chris Papasadero coaching him from the sidelines, and while the film demands very little emotionally out of Caviezel than some of his most challenging roles, the sternness and stoicism that he supplants to calculated threats always make him a captivating force of devastating nature to be reckoned with, providing emphasized proof to the proverbial pudding how Caviezel lends integrity towards lukewarm material that doesn’t always meet him halfway. Though this is undeniably Caviezel’s showcase for the taking, Olivia Thirlby hands in some challenging physicality that refreshingly bring to mind her time on the vastly underrated ‘Dredd’ reimagining of 2012, where Olivia’s quickness and agility come directly into conflict under the descent of hand-to-hand combat during the third act, breeding believability and adaptability to her role as the town sheriff, which unlike Fitz forces her to continuously toe the line of legalities. Aside from the performances, the scenic splendor of the cinematography from Agustin Claramunt takes ample opportunity to resonate the isolated beauty of Wyoming’s enveloping mountainsides, providing blissfully transfixing transitions that help to take the sting away from some of its budgetary restraints on the integrity of the presentation. Between swooping drone shots over the enticing outback, and the articulated tranquility of nature’s therapeutic ambiance, the visuals of the film help convey the meaningful magnitude of what’s worth fighting for between the dramatic circumstances of these conflicted neighbors, and considering the film options for a small town feel amongst its inner-city limits, there’s an isolated disconnect from the outside world that feels compromised by this corporation’s untimely arrival, where so much of the spellbinding majesty of the many articulated landscapes take a backseat to a more action-oriented brand of depiction. Aside from some sturdy performances and presentational pleasantries, the script wastes very little time establishing the set-up of the conflict between these characters, establishing a firm precedent over the consistency of urgency to the movie’s pacing, that keeps the opening introductions to these characters far from feeling dull or lackadaisically transpiring. If the rest of the film matched these opening 30 minutes in promptness among the sequencing, then it could’ve resulted in less of the excessive repetition that eventually flounders the inferior second half with stunted growth creatively, but instead the opening act is essentially where the heart of the narrative persists in articulating the stakes and connectivity of community that reside so strongly within these characters, conjuring the rare semblance of uniqueness that allowed it to at least temporarily stand out from every other vigilante thriller before it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEGATIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of the reason why Jason Statham films are such a pleasurable experience, despite their derivativeness and redundancy with one another, is that the movies openly embrace this cheesy absurdity factor that endearingly allows for chaotic fun in the disposal of limitless bodies and heavy-handed subgenre tropes, and while Fitz’s futuristic tech allows for a litany of impossible toys that would make Batman jealous of their constant razor sharp precision towards meeting an intended target, the conflicting direction from Eubank remains stagnantly stoneface throughout, keeping the audience from ever finding an entertaining angle to indulge in the campiness of such limitless implausibility’s from the screenplay. Even if you can overlook the idea that a corporation hiring mercenaries to physically remove people from their house is highly illegal, there’s other moments involving a translucent cloak that essentially makes Fitz and anyone encased invisible to their adversaries, or even Fitz’s impeccable planning to constantly plan on other characters to always be in the right place at the right time, that make it difficult to buy anything delivered at eye level, without any kind of personality to the screenplay to at least momentarily poke at the hilarity of it all, and with the script already battling uphill problems pertaining to everything from trailer-speak of the dialogue, to an overall absence of characterization, it’s unable to effectively evade the preconceived expectations from audiences who have sat through better versions of this familiar concept, undercooking it creatively to the point of minimalized entertainment value. This is especially the case in the dialogue, where lines from Caviezel ranging from “Corporate tyranny is still tyranny” to “You can thank God all you like, but that ain’t the fella you’re about to meet”, to especially “I’m the man they send to erase problems, and tonight you’re the problem” grated relentlessly on my senses, making it difficult to concentrate on any conversation, let alone buy the naturalism in the context of the conflict, and though the dialogue is far from the only reason why audiences would seek out a movie like this one, the action is just as unfulfilling on the integrity of the experience, particularly as a result of some baffling decisions of its capture crafting more unforeseen problems than expected. The violence itself is already tepidly tame as a result of a PG-13 rating that constantly cuts away from depicted deaths, as well as these distractingly bloodless deposits springing from punctuated lacerations from the characters that feel life-threatening, but beyond all of it, the franticness of shaking camera effects utilized during action sequences make it impossible to coherently decipher what is transpiring at any given time, featuring these abrupt jolts to the editing techniques that frequently deviate between facial perspectives of the characters that are framed too jarringly closely to feel conductively appealing. It’s been a while since the imagery of an action movie nauseated me to the point of needing to frequently look away, in order to alleviate the ocular abuse that was present in my head, but there’s such an experimental sloppiness to the production’s approach that feels seizure-inducing while showcased on the big screen, and it brought back post traumatic stress from the outdated techniques of the early 2000’s, where direction was more preoccupied with flashiness and atmospheric articulation rather than capturing a physical sequence with undeterred clarity and cohesion, in turn rendering such unappealing aesthetic choices that abruptly undercut any semblance of manufactured momentum from sequences so catastrophically executed that they implement anxiety whenever it feels like a scene is spontaneously shifting towards one. If this wasn’t enough, the film fails to effectively balance the scales between Fitz and his merciless adversaries, in order to effectively breed the necessary vulnerability and tension that elevates these physical confrontations with uncertainty, instead crafting a one-sided imbalance that not only undercuts the urgency of the conflict’s magnitude, but also unintentionally articulates the constructional blandness of these assorted antagonists’ one-dimensional designs. While the mustered performances from these actors certainly does as much as the minimalized material allows, their inability to get one over on Fitz, even temporarily, leaves the stakes feeling a bit grounded towards an undercooked climax, especially once those aforementioned supernatural toys from Fitz’s arsenal begin to even the odds with impossibly unplannable impacts, leaving the dimensionality of the script’s thematic impulses of corporate tyranny and veteran resilience feeling as by-the-numbers and predictably enacted as possible. Finally, while I’ve mostly avoided the impulsive urge to single out the production team behind the film, the instrumental themes from composer Brandon Roberts are especially generic and redundant on the profound integrity of the imagery, where much about the evolutions of his compositions ready a televised sensibility to the interpretation of the audience that leaves the film feeling cheap, and the introductions of its characters feeling heavy-handed. The latter is especially the case whenever the antagonists are woven into frame, with these exaggeratedly darker tones illustrating the morality of their intentions long before the scene ever has a chance to, but even as the film adopts a meditative approach over the scope of the spellbinding landscapes, they correspond with these undermined measurements that breeds whimsical over wonder, providing distracting emphasis during the movie’s most definable moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OVERALL
‘Ghost Soldier’ is a derivatively bland and sanitarily scrubbed vigilante justice thriller that fires blanks towards corporate tyranny, manifesting another vengeance fantasy for crotchety curmudgeons seeking a cinematic escape from the monotony of everyday life. Despite a captivatingly chilling turn from Jim Caviezel at the movie’s selling point, the film that surrounds his stoic efforts is bogged down by colorlessly nauseating action sequences and a telegraphed narrative outline that blazes a familiarized trail of mediocrity in its devastating path, resulting in the reheated leftovers of a stuffed subgenre riddled by regurgitation<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Grade: 3.8 or F<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed By William Eubank Starring – Jim Caviezel, Garret Dillahunt, Olivia Thirlby The Plot – A weapon systems engineer and former Green Beret (Caviezel) protects his Wyoming neighbors against a ruthless corporation threatening to steal the land from underneath their rural community. Rated PG-13 for strong violence, some bloody images, and adult language GHOST SOLDIER […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10032"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10034,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10032\/revisions\/10034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}