One Shot (2014)

I love this movie so much

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

My wife and I had finished watching something pretty good on N..F x (yes, that can happen), and she then called it a night while I decided to check out some stupid B (C or D) list action movie. I've sometimes been pleasantly surprised. Although usually not. This movie falls into the not category. Or make that NOT.I gave it a rating of two only because I only give ones when I'm offended. This wasn't offensive. It was just all the other bad and irritating things a truly bad movie can be: boring, pointless, derivative, fake, cheap, slapdash, cheesy, cliché-ed and ... in the end ... barely having any claim to be either a war movie, or a sci-fi movie. I'm usually offended by attempts to become philosophically deep ... scenes thrown in to drive home some drively political "message". But this movie, while it almost tried, made such a lame attempt at it that it was basically inconsequential to the rest. Almost tried, is a good definition of this entire production. It doesn't even try.This movie doesn't need a spoiler alert, because the ending is so obvious that even the premise and the description of the first 20 minutes gives away the ending.Take away the so-called sci-fi touches, this is just an American sniper in -- someone suggested Afghanistan -- but definitely some middle eastern country, battling ISIS or the Taliban. His unit has been wiped out, and now he's alone and the only way to escape is to ... stay where he is and scan the desert region endlessly, and watch the camp of the bad guys, endlessly. If you removed the scenes of him looking through his scope and not seeing much of anything, you'd cut this movie down to an hour. Sometimes, just for whatever (to get a bit of food or water maybe) he goes down and attacks the camp, miraculously killing anyone he comes across. Nothing's believable. He's immortal. He can be in a firefight with 20 bad guys shooting at him with automatic rifles, and he takes them out with karate kicks, a pistol, or a knife. He actually gets captured at one point, that that of course was no problem. A slight diversion, and he's rescued.Just for the sci-fi dimension, he's supposedly on some planet. For some reason, he's supposed to be a good guy, although you're left wondering how the good guys can be that, when they are the ones who have invaded this planet and the people who are there are "insurgents". There's no attempt to deal with this ambiguity. It's all just boo-rah ... including recuperating your dead.The sci-fi thing is provided by some 2001 Space Odyseey command ship which, like a spy satellite, can watch the sniper's every move. But they don't do anything up there but comment on how great he is, or how he's in terrible danger all the time, and make plans to save him but never can for reasons that no one bothers to really explain. The actors playing the command ship scenes, which consists of some black painted plywood set, have nothing to say but ... well, there he is, getting into a cave, or there he is, running around, or whatever ... and the commander seems to know everything that is happening, including the sniper's motivations and plans. It's remarkable.And remarkably lazy ... or just stupid ... writing. Some people call this sort of thing uninspired. But that's a term you'd use for someone who is perhaps capable of being inspired? This is obviously the level of writing you get from someone who is only capable of the most cliché-ed ideas. Nothing is original. And the director really can't do anything with it but throw in some lame fight scenes, long survey-the-desert sequences, and drop a few "alien"/human socio-cultural "exchanges. And there's a really bad guy, actually two ... a bad/bad alien guy who looks like he's straight out of Kabul, and the good/then bad human guy, to I guess show that this whole human adventure on this planet is bad? Or? ... And there's a very sexy alien princess this sniper is suddenly protecting, thrown in, to make sure there's SOME reason for the sniper to seem like a hero.I get irritated when I see this sort of thing. OK, I get it. This provided work for some people. But ... wow ... what gets me is that these types of Netflix filler fodder aren't put through some sort of quality process. The writer of this thing should never be given any more money, ever, for full length movies. There are probably several hundred other aspiring writers who could have provided something more interesting. Or at least not so laughably cliché-ed.

The action sequences leave a lot to be desired reminding me of the A team ... but and its a big but the story is one about the three main characters and not the action. The story has some logical inconsistencies but it is a sci fi movie after all so those can be easily forgiven. The more you watch the more you will get invested in the characters especially the cerulean characters and the plot is not as predictable as it seems. The acting esp by nichelle aiden is superb and better production quality would make this a class film. It is an unusual film that doesn't fit neatly into any genre but the one word i would use to describe it is a film about redemption. Excellent ending so persevere with it.

I enjoyed this flick a lot. There was subtle propaganda in that a few of the characters appeared to be Pashto alongside the aliens, but if you are into the military/action genre, this coupled with a SciFi element made for a very interesting premise. There was some slow periods, but the SciFi angle really spiced it up.The only thing is that the command and control element hovering in low earth orbit appeared to be taken at a local fast food restaurant with red tables in the booths and the female military personnel wearing the type of baseball style caps you see them wearing in such restaurants. Maybe this is all meant for that audience.Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. Nine out of ten stars.

Personally enjoyed the movie quite a lot. You have to wrap your mind around this one to pick up on all of the twist and turns with a smidgen of innuendo. Movie is somewhat deeper than it appears-if you don't pick up on it the first time, watch it again. To me it is not just your everyday "shoot-'em-up" flick. I have not read the book that the movie was based on but glad I didn't as I believe it would have ruined the movie for me. I may now read the book to see if I am correct with the conclusions I drew from the movie are correct. I thought the props, costumes, location, all fit the overall theme. I enjoy watching for bloopers, objects that should not be present such as tire tracks in westerns, etc. If they were present in this film I missed them.