{"id":41689,"date":"2023-11-07T02:17:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T07:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=41689"},"modified":"2023-11-07T02:17:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T07:17:52","slug":"warhorse-one-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/07\/warhorse-one-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Warhorse One (2023)\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In Afghanistan, a downed Navy SEAL finds an American family that needs to be brought back home safely. As only the young daughter is left alive, he must protect her and traverse the wilderness with her while facing off against Taliban. <\/span>\u00a0\\<\/span><\/p>\n

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Written by Johnny Strong who co-directed with William Kaufman (as well as starring) and doing the music), Warhorse one is what some will look at it as a vanity project, which it kind of is, but it\u2019s also a decent enough war action drama. Is it accurate? This reviewer is not the one to judge this as knowledge of war and how it all works is limited. Is it entertaining and keeping the attention throughout? Yes. So, in terms of the movie being well written, it\u2019s decent. The direction works pretty well. It\u2019s not an \u201cOscars contender\u201d, but it\u2019s not bad either. The film builds up a story, strands its lead with a child, puts all possible roadblocks in there, and makes them both get through so much that you have to get attached to them in some way. The film manages to keep the attention with some good twists and turns, some unexpected bits here and there, and a surprising third act that goes really more gruesomely realistic about war and how some people are treated when captured. There are some hard to watch scenes for the general public, horror fans will probably not flinch, but it\u2019s not one of those easy walks in the part type of films, so you do into it expecting some rough stuff.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The performances here are limited to just about any character beyond lead Master Chief Richard Mirko played by Johnny Strong and Zoe Walters played by Athene Durner. These two get the bulk of the screen time and they do well together. Durner has a tough part for a kid, and she is good here. There is a lot for her to process and she does look a bit lost at times, but it\u2019s understandable in this case as this is hard movie for a child to be in and she was most likely shielded from some of it and her understanding of her part would have been limited by that and by her age. This considered, she\u2019s a good actress here and gives a solid, wide-eyed, adorable (that will bring the protective side out of anyone) little lady here. Strong works well with her, giving a part that is not easy something to show on the screen. Yes, this is clearly a film he wrote and co-directed for himself, but it\u2019s not bad. The work he does here works for the part and the film itself. The cast of bad guys is a bit generic and comes off as expected, not exactly well-rounded characters or performances, but they are not created for that, so it\u2019s one of those things where the cast gives serviceable performances. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The cinematography is solid here, the film really works on that front, showing the wilderness, the battles, the close quarter fighting, all of it, clearly and giving the viewer a chance to actually see what is going on. Of course, the editing works with that and sometimes goes a bit into overdrive in some scenes, especially near the end, in a way to give a bit more panic to these scenes, so it can get annoying, but it\u2019s not too insane in quick cuts and too much movement, so it works mostly.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Warhorse One is a war action drama that is clearly made for its lead, by its lead, but it goes beyond a basic vanity project. It\u2019s pretty good, it\u2019s entertaining, there are some tense scenes. It\u2019s not the best war film out there, but it\u2019s ok for a non-war-knowledgeable human. It does what it sets out to, makes the lead out to be reluctant here, gives us an adorable little human to care for, and makes the war look like a horrible thing to deal with. The ending has a bit of a heavy-handed message, but it\u2019s not much of an issue overall, just be warned it\u2019s there. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Afghanistan, a downed Navy SEAL finds an American family that needs to be brought back home safely. As only the young daughter is left alive, he must protect her and traverse the wilderness with her while facing off against Taliban. \u00a0\\<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,302,2826],"class_list":["post-41689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-drama","tag-war-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41690,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41689\/revisions\/41690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}