Blood, violence, and suspense all collide in director Martin Campbell’s new action thriller, Dirty Angels. So, the movie is not so fortunate in terms of character growth as well as the level of depth in engaging shooting up a bunch of crazies trying to save the world. M16s twinkle their lights. The body count rises. What goes through the audience’s mind is as important as the story in which the lives of young hostage children are at stake. It is unfortunate that we do not have much more insight about any of these individuals. But we will know enough, and that may be what the Dallas Men wanted.
The Dirty Angels screenplay has Alissa Sullivan Haggis and Jonas McCord as co-writers. Martin, a devotee of what he calls ‘mission movies’ of the 60s which include The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen, must have had excitement regarding the story here, which features a band of schoolgirls taken hostage in afghanistan. The central focus revolves around American soldier Jake, who is portrayed by complaint with Campbell in the outstanding James Bond movie, Casino Royale, Eva Green, Campbell’s other collaborator. From there, Jake goes on to become a member of an all women’s commando group that intends to free the hostages by posing as disaster charity workers to gain the terrorists’ trust. But, as you might expect, that does not go off splendidly. Another action thriller is born.
But Campbell, an auteur associated with multiple companies who worked on the likes of GoldenEye, Vertical Limit and The Mask of Zorro, Zorro and Edge of Darkness for example, is unable to help the screenplay primarily due to the fact that it is more focused on violent scenes and the strain which went into the final rescue sequence. These men are savage for this group of women, but we are just given the bare bone back story of these female saviors. The danger that the character has in her back story which Green’s Jake carries a trauma over gets interest, which is a nice touch. There is more to the great body of work than many times we have watched the film only to turn it off halfway through the motion picture.
Also starring the likes of Bakalova Maria (who appears in the ’Creature Commandos’), Ruby Rose, Jojo T. Gibbs, Reza Brojerdi and Christopher Backus Maria, Dirty Angels has a cast worth praising. The film outline is set when Green portrays a character named Jake who suffers from grief and trauma. She is a cutthroat army ranger, who would never ever leave any of her fellow comrades back on the field, even if it is an alarming situation. So after losing her crew during execution of a mission, Jakes career and ego both are shattered. This could be taken as the first indication of her retirement plans.
The narration gets more intriguing as they suggest that the US military abstains from calling themselves jihadis. In the midst of a war in Ukraine, the current participants receive a jarring shock as Sudhanshu reveals shocking details about a US strike. The US army infiltrated the eastern side of Afghanistan through Pakistan and while the war stretched, they remember the mission: ‘al-Gaida hawa mein hai’, and the chief commander Al Zawahi surfaced as a target. Russian commando units assisted the strike teams appointed for sabraj during the war from the eastern side. But the film does not do justice in portraying how this was only made possible when US Congress broke out in a civil war.
This is a fascinating premise. And the setup, the narration, the backstory of Jake and even the parts where the actual scene is set makes the audience say, “Okay, I’ll buy it.” It’s just that the film… and this is mostly the script, a further shocker because it is known that Campbell also crafted the story — tends to be too one-dimensional, far too often failing to go deeper. The tale would have been executed so much better if we knew anything about Jake’s life or any other woman on the team apart from her main tragedy. It would have been easier for the audience to engage with the characters more fully and to be more interested in how events unfold.
That observation, however, does not undermine the credibility of the characters we are presented with. Of the mix, the character of Maria Bakalova, nicknamed “The Bomb”, is the most captivating. She is a bomb expert and her quirk as a character eclipses some of the others in the scene. Green is stunning in what is described as her first action thriller although the development of her character is quite limited by the script, Green involving her character Jake manages to portray his anguish quite convincingly. We understand that for her, the new goal might matter even more because if she accomplishs it, it might somehow relieve the burden of what happened before. Some other characters, especially the terrorists, are more stock-style villains but they have a bit of a bite for drama.
Over all this and sometimes for the better, what stands out is director Martin Campbell’s clever way of dropping us in a place. The memory of flying into a helicopter or traveling to dusty corners in which terror is taking place, these scenes do seem real, and one finds oneself asking, if, say, eight episodes of a streaming drama were broadcast, Campbell et al. might have been more successful. Examples of shows like these are Hogwarts, Jack Ryan, Seal Team Six, and The terminal list for instance, helped in formulating fantastic backstories for their roundish characters.
Some would argue that the focus on action scenes was one of the reasons Campbell went in the direction he did, but even the most notable of these are left for the last twenty minutes of the film. There are some unique spins when the kidnappers take turns, but this ping pong match lags, and the movie becomes overboard with every type of action thriller cliché. (However, there’s some sort of fun in all that sometimes.)
This is one of the major problems with Dirty Angels. The movie, in a way, has no clear plot that is easier for the viewers to understand. This entire situation could have been avoided if the viewers were better told what character might matter and lead up to the end scene. What we have instead is a great deal of reaction and little to no explanation.
Despite the fact that this movie has a female-focused cast, it seems that military action drama fans should not be expecting too much from this feature. And judging by that, this picture features a strong female cast who are placed in perilous scenarios. Lines like this one do not strike us as particularly common, given how big in scale and focused on geolocation it is. Also, keep an eye on Eva Green as well, as I think she will surprise you. She looks great in action and is an impressive star. Let’s just put her in a lot of action. Dirty Angels comes out in theaters and on VOD on December 13.
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