Some dodgy acting and iffy line-readings put a downer on this action thriller with a very topical slant. It’s about a new civil war – with Texas leading a secessionist movement – heralded by an all-out invasion of Bushwick in Brooklyn, New York.
Brittany Snow plays Lucy, a college student visiting her grandmother who is terrified to find herself in a war zone. There is only one person who can protect her: a huge combat veteran called Stupe (Dave Bautista), who has a painful backstory.
There is something interestingly surreal about the Call of Duty visuals created here in a quasi-continuous single take. But the political dimension of the movie is referred to very fleetingly, in just a few lines of dialogue. Other than that it is a standard-issue combat movie, with the arbitrary narrative device of an “evacuation area” that the principals need to reach. And sadly the acting and dialogue needed a little work.
