A high 6 for what is a decent run-up to a disappointingly uneventful ending, in a film where ultimately nothing much happens.


Discrepancies in the ops of EOD and other military units weren't obvious to me as a civilian until I read about them online, but there were two things that stuck in my graw until the credits rolled.

01. Who in their right mind would pull on a wire attached to multiple IEDs buried in the dirt? Granted, he didn't know for sure what they were attached to, but being where he was and doing what he was doing there was a very good chance they were attached to other devices. Even I would have known not to do that.

02. An EOD soldier picks up a .50 sniper rifle and uses it with around 50% accuracy. It is mentioned somewhere in the film that said soldier is former military intelligence, so there is a chance that he would have handled a weapon of that type before, but I think it unlikely that he would be so efficient with it.

The first hour of the film, I thought I had really found something worth watching. Not just another "war is hell" story, but something with a side of war that is rarely portrayed (at least not well). Alas, it was no Saving Private Ryan, though perhaps that is a little too harsh a judgment.

I enjoyed it, but it's not one I'll revisit in the future.