Just watch it

Rating: 10/10 (16 October 2015)

Never reviewed a film before, and probably never will again.
It's been a long day out today. Personal/family/relatives type stuff. Got home a little before midnight needing to chill out. Nothing on the regular TV, so flicked Netflix on and oooh! It's the 16th that new film is on there. Let's see what if it's any good, after all it's Idris Elba and let's face it he's pretty damned good in everything I've seen him in up till now.
So, the film. It's all about a young boy's experiences in an unnamed African country experiencing a civil war. The kid, Agu, starts off as a normal young lad enjoying life, trying his luck and generally being a cheeky little bu**er. The imagination TV is a stroke of genius, and yeah, I'd buy one. He's a kid growing up in a worn torn country and that war is rapidly approaching. Bang. The war has caught up, and Agu finds himself stranded in the middle of it. In steps Idris Elba (the Commandant), saves him from an early demise, and recruits him into the rebel army. From this point on it's pretty much all spoilers, other than to say you're now going to be subjected to a pretty graphic view of war from a ten/eleven/twelve year old's point of view. This kid goes through some serious s*it, and trust me, you can see that.
Abraham Attah the young actor who plays Agu is utterly brilliant and without doubt, the star of this particular film. Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye (Strika), Agu's cohort and the nearest thing to a friend, is again, utterly brilliant even though he hardly speaks. These two boys, and yes that's what they are, really make you feel what it's like to walk, and survive, through a war. This is harrowing stuff. Kids should be allowed to be kids. They need to play and enjoy the experiences of life before the serious stuff starts. There's one scene where they are actually managing to do just that, and play. All of a sudden you're reminded that these are children who have fingers, and, as Idris puts it early on in the film, "have fingers and can pull a trigger".
I seriously doubt that this is a film that would ever have been made through the conventional means. Netflix allowed Cary Joji Fukunaga pretty much total control over how this film was to turn out, and as far as I'm concerned they were right to do so. This guy obviously has a real talent for producing a film that is both beautiful and terrifying to watch. It's a brutal film, with little left to the imagination. It's a beautiful film, excellently shot. It's a disturbingly psychological film about young boys at war. It's a film that will make you sit up and think, while at the same time wishing it would go away. It's going to be one of those films that you need to see.
If I have any real criticism whatsoever, and this really is nitpicking, it's got to be the guy that drew me into watching it in the first place. Idris Elba. Now don't get me wrong, he provides yet another class performance here, although just once or twice the accent slips a little, and I am only talking a half a dozen words in the entire film. Ah, hell, he's only playing a supporting role, so we'll cut him a little slack. Yeah, that's right, the guy with the big Hollywood name isn't the star of this one. All the nitpicking aside, and it's nitpicking to the n'th degree, I would be well surprised if this one doesn't produce a couple of Oscar nominations. It really is that good.
Watch it, see what you think. Disagree with me if you like, but I'll still be looking forward to the next Netflix original because I reckon that the regular studios are suddenly going to find themselves with a whole new battle on their hands. It's time to throw away the formula, and let's get down to some seriously good cinema