Three different men, three different worlds, three different wars - all stand at the intersection of modern warfare - a murky world of fluid morality where all is not as it seems. This is a great film. It follows a number of Canadian Special Forces troops in Afghanistan. But this isn't just a shoot-'em-up war flick. It goes into a lot of the Afghan culture. It talks about blood feuds. It, also, brings up an ancient tribal code called Pashtunwali. It talks about the ideas of "panah" (to give one shelter in your home) and "badal" (justice and revenge). There is a monologue by Andrew Wall. At the end he says, "Even the dirt here is hostile. In Afghanistan, dogs fight dogs, birds fight birds, men kill men." So, if you are looking for a great movie about soldiers in the "sand box". If you want to see great performances from actors that you, probably, have never heard of. If you want to see breath taking scenery. Then this is the movie for you. Hyena Road follows a group of Canadian soldiers as they search for a supposedly legendary man living in Afghanistan in the hopes of using him to achieve their own goals. <br/><br/>I liked a handful of aspects of this movie. I thought that some of the conflicts introduced throughout were good, particularly one involving a love interest, but that one aspect in particular wasn't ever really that important. It made sense why it wasn't so important, but nonetheless it felt like just a way of making the characters more relatable than an actual conflict within the story. The action sequence at the end was pretty good as well, and the visuals were pretty cool too. <br/><br/>Everything else is pretty average. The rest of the action scenes aren't really any good, and the acting is just okay. Paul Gross, the writer, director and star of the show stood out as being a particularly poor actor. I can't say that I'm surprised though for some reason that I can't really explain. <br/><br/>The aspect of searching for this legendary Afghan warrior dude was kind of unique, but it was far too out of place to be considered a good thing. Considering everything else was treated with total seriousness, suddenly throwing in some supposedly invincible legendary warrior dude was just too dang out of place. <br/><br/>The end was pretty stupid too. Sure the action was better, and I liked how the movie handled how dramatic some of it was, but in the end it was pretty dumb. Of all the war movies I've seen, this is one of the dumbest (not as dumb as Fury (2014) if you ask me) endings I've seen. <br/><br/>In the end Hyena Road is okay. There are good parts, and there are bad parts, but most of it is just okay. In the end I wouldn't recommend this movie. While the attempt at a certain, documentary-style naturalism is honorable, it's at the expense of focused plotting and sufficient character development.
Petunpazy replied
295 weeks ago