Pretty, bland and mediocre

Rating: 3/10 (22 January 2020)

It's a nice enough movie to watch , if your expectations aren't too high .
Better yet, have no expectations at all, and a few drinks on a slow night when watching this .
It's a war movie, that tries to be a special, a memorable war movie .
Unfortunately, this desperate desire of the creators not only is omnipresent throughout the entite film, it is also a goal way beyond the skills of the makers .
There are a few brief fine acting performances . Just not by the lead actor(s), who is (are) instantly forgettable . So forgettable, you have to remind yourself it's still the same character ( 2 of those for part of the film ) after you blinked .
There also are a few very nice shots and beautifully put together locations .
It's a shame that the camera work and editing is so poorly done, you never really get a good sense ot them .
It's an ongoing theme - the viewer never gets involved in the scenery, the story, the action, the mediocre attempts at adding depth to some situations .
And certainly not in the main characters, who appear like interns from catering were cast .
As for the one-shot thing , it worked in a few scenes .
The technique was developed to add dynamics and/or density to scenes, that were usually fairly sort, a complex piece of a more complex overall concept .
Here, the creators chose to go the easy way, and just threw that technique at the entire movie , whether it made sense or not .
Apart from the film NOT being done in one single shot - for those who were fooled into thinking so - it also only works in a few scenes, and severly compromises the rest of the movie .
And even in those 'good' scenes. it really isn't very well done, and wasn't worth the effort . Mainly because it was a lazy, incompetent effort, the writing didn't match the camera work, and they just didn't try very hard .
Above all, the movie is boring .
It's an unimaginative , cold and stage like presentation; stereotypical, stale and again - completely uninvolving .
But at least we now know that the one-shot thing can be done very wrong - even when it's a fake - and should be used for different projects, and by better skilled creators .