Seeking the right road
With little jingoism, Hyena Road paints a realistic portrait of Canada’s war in Afghanistan
Canadian idealism comes under fire in Hyena Road, a dramatic inquiry by Paul Gross into the ethics and realities of 21st-century warfare.
Set in Kandahar province during the Afghanistan war, it views Canada’s recently concluded military operations there with hard-nosed pragmatism rather than the country’s customary optimism. The goal of the movie is truth-telling rather than flag-waving, but it also succeeds as impactful storytelling.
Gross sets a questioning tone not only as writer and director, but also in the significant role of Pete Mitch- ell, an archly amusing and ethically flexible senior intelligence officer tasked with getting things done, one way or another. Mitchell, also the film’s gruff narrator, is the polar opposite of the highly principled Canucks often played by Gross, in his First World War drama Passchendaele (2008) and his Due South TV series of the 1990s.
Mitchell is frequently at odds with Rossif Sutherland’s Ryan Sanders, a sharpshooter first glimpsed in an opening scene reminiscent of American Sniper: pulling the trigger on an insurgent seeking to blow up allied soldiers.
The taciturn Sanders kills with ruthless efficiency, but he seems hopelessly naive in his belief that “just one bullet in the right place” could spark positive change. He seeks at all times to abide by the rules of engagement, heedless of Mitchell’s admonishment that any such “rules” are written in the shifting sands of their desert combat zone.
Enter “The Ghost” (Neamat Arghandabi), a remote village elder who becomes central to the road-building effort that backdrops the film’s multiple plot threads. He’s a revered ex-Mujahedeen warrior who fought Soviet invaders in the 1980s, only to vanish to presumed self-exile. He has suddenly returned to the region, with intentions that may be benign — he saves Canadian lives during a Taliban ambush — but also with hints of a larger agenda, one that Mitchell hopes to uncover and exploit, with a conflicted Sanders riding shotgun.
Hyena Road is strongest at this narrative juncture. The film is enriched by authentic military procedures and lingo (profanity included), drawn from Gross’s extensive interviews with Canadian Forces members during two visits to Kandahar.
The desert locales of Jordan (subbing for Afghanistan) and Karim Hussain’s expressive cinematography convey immediacy and realism, especially in action scenes that are as good as any in larger Hollywood productions.
Less successful is the romantic side road, involving Sanders and Capt. Jennifer Bowman (Christine Horne), an officer at the Sperwan Ghar command post who has the thankless job of being the love interest in a movie that is most definitely not about love.
Hyena Road is about trying to stay on the right path in a place of no clear signposts, one where cherished Canadian ideals must struggle to survive.
Viewers are kept guessing about the larger agenda of those fighting, while romance weakens the film