A film that awakens you

Rating: 9/10 (23 January 2016)

I didn't know what to expect when i choose to spend my Saturday evening watching a movie, i found this and thought it sounded interesting from prior reviews and description of movie. It begins within a small non descript village in Africa, and follows the middle child of a impoverished family living day to day but when you see family gather, play, work and pray they are every bit like any other family anywhere else with laughter filling their existence as they struggle each day. Then everything stops and reality sets in when young lads family initially is dispersed mother and youngest daughter and sister are swept away and soldiers arrive in village. Lad goes from family to young apprentice soldier and then movie moves into a dark and horrific onslaught of bush fighting, killing and army camaraderie. As disarray of young soldiers spearheaded by its middle aged Commandent take battle from scene to scene. Imagine a world like that for your child, and understand why we in Europe receive so many refugees from places distant to us in which we see daily news updates of people risking their lives to cross Med to come to Europe for a new life. The movie is filmed at close quarters, the story enriched by young actors portraying these soldiers as if they really had lived a life of them, the scenery of a day in a life of a young child carrying a gun to earn his meal per day and struggles of seeing comrades lose their lives at such a young age all and more i soaked in this two hours of a epic movie. Its gritty, real, scary to watch as Director and cast deserve your time to see the movie.