ARMY OF ONE (2020)

                                                         

Readers have asked me how I can watch, much less enjoy, some of the movies I write about here. They don’t understand how someone with my impeccable taste in comic books is so forgiving when discussing movies. I shall endeavor to explain.

I know how to write great comic books. I have written great comic books. To me, it’s not all that difficult. Which is why I shake my head in disbelief when writers write and publishers publish crappy comic books.

Movies are different. I think I could write a great movie, but, as I’ve never tried to write one, I don’t know that I can. Indeed, I’d more likely shoot for an entertaining movie or a fun movie than a great movie. Not that great movies can’t be entertaining or fun. I know they can. I simply don’t hold movies in the same regard or to the same standard that I hold comic books.

All I ask from a movie is that it entertains me for ninety minutes or two hours. It can have a silly plot or dialogue that falls flat or bad acting as long as those things are all good enough to give me that relaxing ninety minutes or two hours.

When I started in comics, many of my fellow writers wanted to get into movies or television. I just wanted to write the best comics I could write. That was my grail.

Great comics are my gold standard of entertainment. Movies are just there for fun. I don’t expect as much from them. This is reflected in the movies I watch and write about.

Army of One [2020] is not a great comic book. It’s not even a very good movie. But it was good enough for the ninety minutes it took to watch it. No more, no less. Here’s the Internet Movie Database summary:

Out hiking, Special Forces Brenner Baker stumbles onto a Cartel's compound. Her husband's killed and she's left for dead. The Cartel made two mistakes, killing her husband and leaving her alive. They won't live to make another.

That’s pretty much the entire movie in three sentences, but I will still throw up the usual warnings.

SPOILERS AHEAD
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Actress (and one of four writers) Ellen Hollman is the best thing about this movie. What she lacks in the actual acting, she makes up for with her assortment of defiant faces, gritty determination and excellent fight scenes. There’s an extended one-shot fight scene that was filmed in one take after only an hour of preparation. That is impressive.

Hollman’s Brenner doesn’t face any moral quandaries as she takes out the bad people. Her foes are cold-blooded killers, conscience-less rapists, human traffickers, gunrunners and religious hypocrites. I make no claim of biblical scholarship, but I’m fairly confident Jesus would do none of those things.

Geraldine Singer plays Mama, the head of this crime organization, though she tries to portray her evil as somehow serving the Lord. Her assortment of henchmen all meet their expected and satisfying  ends at Brenner’s hands. On her part, Brenner only takes a hit when she’s betrayed or when she sacrifices herself to save someone else. Yes, she takes the law into her own hands, but I’m very comfortable calling her a hero.

My biggest disappointments are that Brenner fails on two occasions to protect women she’d promised to protect, that she fails to bring down Mama until a final scene that takes place several months after the main action and that she seemingly never remembers to tell the local sheriff that his dispatcher is working for Mama.

SPOILERS OVER
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The movie was written by Mary Ann Barnes (who was a staff writer on Last Man Standing), David Dittlinger, Stephen Durham (who also directed) and Hollman. I watched it on Amazon Prime.

Do I recommend this movie? If you’re someone who likes movies with bad-ass women, definitely. Someday I want to write a comic book or maybe a movie featuring bad-ass women. If you like movies wherein villains are slaughtered thus putting less pressure on our justice system, you might enjoy it as well. Outside of those demographics, I won’t presume to say who else might enjoy it.

I’ll be back soon with more book, comic and movie reviews. I have other bloggy things in the works as well.

Thanks for visiting today. Stay safe and sane and be excellent to your fellow humans who aren’t cold-blooded killers, conscience-less rapists, human traffickers, gunrunners or religious hypocrites. It is okay to have standards.

© 2021 Tony Isabella