I love a good war movie. I really love Vietnam war movies. I will give almost any of them a try. Always have. Going forward, from today I am changing this policy because I made the mistake of watching Ambush.
Ambush is the newest ‘Nam flick that has just been released. I warn you, this is going to be a short review. Why? Because normally in a review you have to talk about the good and the bad. I just can’t find any good in this, so it is a half-size review. According to the blurb:
“Aaron Eckhart (‘The Dark Knight’) and Jonathan Rhys Meyers (‘Vikings’) star in this intense, gritty and action-packed Vietnam War epic. When a small outpost is ambushed, a US Army squad must take the battle below ground on a high-stakes mission in a new type of warfare the likes of which they have never seen.”
In reality, Ambush is a low-budget, low(or no) effort war flick about a unit of men who have to go down into the PAVN tunnels in Vietnam to retrieve a stolen classified document. From the moment they set out to do it, all of the most tired cliches and tropes start up and then never stop. Not one attempt is made to do a fresh take on any of these. Then you add in terrible acting, and it just gets worse. Seriously, my dog could act better.
Even worse is the lack of attention to detail or historical accuracy. This is standard stuff for a war movie. You know war buffs will be watching so you have to make even the smallest of efforts to get details right. Here it is like they just simply haven’t bothered. Errors that I immediately saw included the lieutenant in charge wearing corporal stripes. Their gear is all wrong for the time, location, and unit. Finally, they use guns that won’t even exist for fifty years.
These are idiotic, zero-effort mistakes that even the most casual war movie viewer would notice.
Ambush is directed by Mark Earl Burman, who also served as a writer on the screenplay alongside Johnny Lozano making his feature film writing debut. Michael McClung (Regarding the Case of Joan of Arc) also writes. Joining Rhys Meyers and Eckhart, the cast of Ambush features Connor Paolo (Revenge), Mac Brandt (The Thing About Pam), Jordan Johnson-Hinds (Upload), and Jeff Caperton (Deepwater Horizon).
Everyone who had anything to do with this film should hang their heads in shame. Even the low-budget Canon Films ‘Namsploitation movies from the 1980s used correct uniforms, guns, and equipment. Canon films! For a movie like this to not even bother trying makes it lower than low. I wish I could give this minus 5 stars out of 5, but our rating plug-in doesn’t work that way.
Ambush premieres in theaters, on Digital, and On Demand on February 24, 2023. Save yourselves!
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