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Review

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

Tom Petch's directorial debut works hard to convey the lot of the ordinary soldier on duty in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. Petch served in the British army for eight years, and his frontline experience shines through in dialogue that crackles with gritty jargon and slang, as a patrol led by sergeant Nicholas Beveney is left exposed in the desert with confused orders and malfunctioning kit. As invisible Taliban guerrillas make their presence felt, tensions mount, along with a growing sense of disillusion with a war that has long since ceased to be a surgical strike. The film is starkly shot by Stuart Bentley and is close in spirit to Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington's 2010 documentary Restrepo. While the composition of the unit is too conveniently cosmopolitan and some of the performances are rather stiff, Petch's film still reeks of authenticity, even if the narrative control is slightly less assured.

How to watch

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Credits

Cast

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SmudgeNav Sidhu
Captain Bill RichardsonBen Righton
TaffOwain Arthur
Sergeant "Sol" CampbellNicholas Beveney
Lieutenant Johnny BradshawDaniel Fraser
GingeAlex McNally
StabOliver Mott

Crew

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DirectorTom Petch

Details

Theatrical distributor
Soda Pictures
Released on
2014-02-07
Languages
English
Available on
DVD
Formats
Colour
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