WARHORSE ONE - Mark Reviews Movies

Warhorse One, Well Go USA

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 29, 2023

Warhorse One poses as an action movie, in that its plot features a lengthy chase and lots of shooting/stabbing. On a technical level, though, co-directors William Kaufman and Johnny Strong's one-man-against-an-army tale is staged in such an amateurish way that none of that action, save for one barely competent sequence, feels as if it's actually happening.

Most of it amounts to our hero, the lone survivor of an ambushed rescue mission in Afghanistan, firing his rifle out of frame at enemies who do the same. Strong plays Master Chief Richard Mirko, the leader of a Special Forces team whose helicopter is hit by a rocket on the way to rescue a group of missionaries from encroaching insurgents. He falls out of the chopper before it crashes, and despite orders from base, Mirko decides to carry out the mission on his own.

That's the assumption, at least, because the score, composed by Strong, is so constant and overwhelming, while the dialogue recording is so unbalanced, that it's often difficult to tell what some of the characters are saying. It's especially true in the case of Strong's character, who speaks in a gruff whisper, but one accidental benefit of having a plot this thin is that things like dialogue are mostly unnecessary.

After lots of walking and shooting at off-screen insurgents (who, in reverse shots, sometimes appear to be positioned in different places than where Mirko is aiming), our hero finds another lone survivor. She's Zoe (Athena Durner), missionaries' daughter. His sole goal is get this girl to safety, while also answering her questions about combat and death in an attempt to give this material some philosophical weight. What we can hear from the guy isn't particularly convincing, although Mirko makes sure to repeatedly explain that his motives for killing the bad guys aren't religious or racial.

This amounts to a lot more walking across various terrains, with occasional stops to shoot from behind rocks at more foes taking cover behind other rocks, and one can't help but think that it's rather convenient that the landscape so frequently provides the layout of a shooting gallery. More walking, a bit of talking, and some additional gunfire follow, and eventually, Mirko has to infiltrate a village where Zoe is being held captive.

That sequence, at least, lets our protagonist walk and shoot at the same time. The scene doesn't make much logical or logistical sense (One of the bad guys—farther away than Mirko's targets, by the way—can hear the gunfire but thinks little of it), but in comparison to the rest of the action, it's something—not much, admittedly.

In addition to acting and directing and composing, Strong also co-wrote the script (with Kaufman), performed the editing (with sluggish pacing), and provided the final coloring of Warhorse One. Let's generously call it an effort—and less generously say that watching the movie is one, too.

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