Genre: Action thriller
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Plot: Two former soldiers, one Serbian and one American, wage war against each other in the forest.
The gist: With the pairing of John Travolta and Robert De Niro, what could go wrong? Well, a lot apparently.
The story is as basic as it gets: a Serbian soldier goes to the States to find an American soldier who had shot him during the Serbian war many years ago, but failed to kill him. The two men then play a game of cat and mouse, each of them taking turns becoming the aggressor and the target.
The film has its moments, but it never quite rises above its made-for-TV movie quality.
The good: A couple of torture scenes come off looking solid enough, which involve arrows, a string through a leg and even waterboarding. The scenery was well filmed by DP Peter Menzies Jr.
The bad: De Niro sports an inconsistent Southern accent, while Travolta exaggerates his Serbian accent. The film, while mercifully short, takes too much time to get going as we have to watch the duo talk about their personal lives while listening to Johnny Cash. Their dispute also ends rather meekly, which is the ultimate disappointment.
Verdict: With the kind of calibre involved, one would expect a classic, but no such luck here. There's not enough action or thrills here for it to qualify as an action thriller. Skip this. (5/10)
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