Hyena Road

I found the film to be somewhat adrift as far as the theme and the storyline. There didn't seem to be much of a resolution, rather a way to end the film. If it's supposed to be an analogy of the current situation in Afghanistan, well we get that "It's not one war, it's a lot of little wars" message earlier on. It would make a superb pilot for a series centered around the Intel guy (Paul Gross). I found the scenes within the CP interesting: radio procedure has changed dramatically in the 40 years since I was in the infantry. But the only scene I found totally authentic was the "dance in the desert" scene. This sort of thing does happen spontaneously within a tight knit group. And the patrol procedure and snipercraft were off in my opinion. The "Ghost" character was my favorite. I liked the fact that no subtitles were used and that, like the soldiers, we had to listen to the interpreter. I would liked to have seen his character developed. The artillery scenes were authentic and dramatic, but it was the only time I've seen the gunners get a target round on the first shot. The small arms combat sequences were excellent. Total confusion like always. All in all, I enjoyed it, and I recommend it.

This is a pretty well made little movie about the complexities of trying to understand cultural norms of a country thousands of years older than the conquering force. I liked that there was no judgement, just a simple, if somewhat disturbing, portrayal of this difficult circumstance.

Solid acting, realistic action and fairly good character development.

An interesting watch.

It explores the depth of the decision making in a never ending war. It shows how the "right call" may not be the right one in the long run and how its not black and white as people like to see it. Paul Gross creates the amazing story from great research. The love story is a bit hard to watch and Sutherland's acting leaves a lot to be desired, but it tells a story that needed to be told, with built in drama, twists and great comedic relief.

Can tell a lot of effort went into production, and a sincere effort was made at authenticity...but still comes off as a movie that doesn't take itself very seriously, played by actors who take themselves perhaps too seriously. At times I wasn't entirely sure this wasn't a deliberately tongue-in-cheek drama with the aim of a little awkward comic relief; however, neither one works well as it is neither here nor there. Perhaps soap-opera-ish would be a good descriptor in terms of overall production value, not content per se'.

The combat scenes, while not poorly acted or choreographed, still come off as a little bit staged. Sometimes it's just the little things, like uniforms not being quite dirty enough after soldiers were supposedly rolling around in the mountains for a few hours; sometimes the mountains look a little bit more like the Arizona Rockies than Afghanistan. Sometimes The Afghani villagers look a little bit too clean, well fed, and smooth-skinned to be actual Afghani villagers. The way the Taliban swarm en-masse, hail-mary style is just not how they tend to move tactically in the real world. Like I said, the little things. the sniper scope reticle they give us a peek through is, thankfully, not the usual nonsense with all sorts of colors and numbers and flashing lights, as is seen in some movies. it's not the standard Mil Dot reticle, but at least it's half believable.

Ultimately, on a budget, just so much can really be put into production. overall, not a terrible movie, perhaps as an amateur military historian who's watched more than my fair share of combat helmet cams, I'm a bit more tuned in to the minutiae. So be it...overall, I'd give it a 7 for effort, and a 5 for final product, so at 6 I think is a fair score.

Well made movie. Lacked Hollywood glitz, it was very believable and I did enjoy the character development. I felt a need to give a total "neutrals" review of this. This will be a movie I return to from time to time.

The plot was good; and in that forsaken land of Afghanistan, I really got to like the Afghanistan people as well, well, at least a lot of them, not the terrorists of course. That war is so brutal and it's been in the upswing the last few years, it certainly seems.

Nice third world vibe. I could easily name some much more well known war movies I think this is better than. What's the fuss?