The Wall is the best kind of war film
It’s late 2007, the Iraq War is supposedly in its final throes and U.S. President George W. Bush has already declared victory.
Tell that to the two soldiers who find themselves facing off against an ingenious foe under the heat of a blazing Middle Eastern sun. The story opens appropriately through the lens of a rifle scope as American crack snipers Matthews and Isaac survey a scene of carnage from the safety of a makeshift hideout on a rocky hillside.
Below lies a slew of bodies of pipeline workers, most of whom have died as the result of expertly delivered head shots from an unseen assassin.
It appears to be the work of a sniper nicknamed Juba, whose lethal efficiency has earned their grudging respect. When the soldiers unwisely break cover, a taut and deadly game of cat and mouse begins and they do not have the upper hand.
Director Doug Liman is a capable craftsman who’s delivered such high-tension action films as The Bourne Identity (2002) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014). The Wall is a worthy addition to his oeuvre.
Dwain Worrell provides a wellplotted and sinewy script that comes with a few nasty surprises for the ostensible protagonists.
It’s also intelligent enough to make us question our own loyalties as the story unfolds. The wall of the title is a crumbling ruin and an apt metaphor for the larger conflict between two warring civilizations that leaves nothing in its wake but destruction.
Isaac soon finds himself using its limited cover as he battles thirst and fatigue, and the growing realization that his unseen adversary is a master tactician whose commitment to the battle may be greater than his own.
Professional wrestler and actor John Cena gets only a limited opportunity to chew up scenery as Matthews, the gruffer and more veteran of the two soldiers.
It’s left to Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Isaac to carry the film and he’s solidly empathetic, displaying a combination of determination and vulnerability.
The third character is never seen, so we hear only the voice of Juba, whom Laith Nakli imbues with a palpable sense of menace.
But he’s more complex than that, a canny manipulator who probes and finds ways to exploit the weaknesses of Isaac, who expresses a sense of sorrowfulness when he asks, “Why are you still here?” The Wall is the best kind of war film, one that expresses both the brutality of combat and the ambiguity of conflict. Bruce DeMara Also opening: Greg McLean’s murder countdown thriller The Belko Experiment, starring John Gallagher Jr. ( 10 Cloverfield Lane) and Tony Goldwyn (TV’s Scandal), Friday at Cineplex Yonge-Dundas, and Imagine Cinemas Woodbine Centre and Elgin Mills.