My Buddy Mr J. Christopher Wilson is reviewing some movies. He has agreed for us to post his reviews here.
A true story about an Army outpost in the depths of Afghanistan, “The Outpost” is a gritty, dramatic, powerful war movie about a company assigned to work with local villages to create a peace and defend their indefensible outpost. What brilliant tactician places an outpost in a valley surrounded by three mountains in the heart of enemy territory? It’s ridiculous on its face and yet these brave soldiers dealt with it. It happened. After investigation all similar outposts were shut down.
War movies are always brutal and this is no different. Both heroic and tragic, this movie neither glorifies war nor does it criticize the soldiers. Honor, duty, fear, and grief all hang in the dusty air of the acrid desert and make for compelling character development and solid character study. How do different humans handle the same overpowering environment?
This tale of heroic duty in the face of insurmountable tactical stupidity on the part of the war machine—not the soldiers—is valuable and time well spent even if it is disturbing and horrific. Not for children or those offended by f-bombs galore and crude discussions, “The Outpost” was a well-crafted film.
Grade: AAvailable on Netflix
