The Standoff at Sparrow Creek

How quickly the paranoid turn on one another.

(2018) Drama (RLJE) James Badge Dale, Chris Mulkey, Brian Geraghty, Robert Aramayo, Patrick Fischler, Happy Anderson, Gene Jones, Cotter Smith, Bret Eric Porter, Nichole Abshire, James Healey Jr., Max Konz, David Adams, Marcellus Anthony, Danny Augustus, Brian Bethel, Stephen Bouldin, Michael W. Bunch, Arlene Cavazos, Karia Barbelotto. Directed by Henry Dunham

 

In a time when heavily armed angry white men go to a state capital with semi-automatic weapons clearly at the ready to protest being quarantined during a pandemic, this movie, which takes a look at what goes on in a civilian militia when driven to a crisis point, seems all the more relevant.

Ex-cop Gannon (Dale) is out hunting when he hears the distant pop of automatic weapons fire as well as several explosions. He quickly heads home with his buck, knowing that he’s about to get a call, and so he does; from Ford (Mulkey), the leader of the militia group that Gannon has joined. They are to meet up at the warehouse that serves as an armory for the group.

The group assembles, including mute Keating (Aramayo), young Noah (Geraghty), laconic Hubbel (Jones), nervous Beckman (Fischler), and ex-Aryan Morris (Anderson) to compare notes. Gradually, they learn that there was an attack on a funeral – a cop’s funeral – which took down many of the dead officer’s brethren. It was believed to be the work of a militia. Ford knows that there will be some angry law enforcement looking warily at every militia group locally, and so he decides to button down the armory and make sure everyone has an alibi. Then, they discover one of their automatic weapons is missing, along with some grenades and a set of Kevlar body armor. The attacker was one of their own.

Ford realizes that if they are to survive the night, they must discover who went rogue and deliver that person up to the police. In the meantime, other militia groups have taken the attack as a sign and are mounting attacks against police officers all over the country. Gannon is assigned to do the interrogating of the likeliest subject, as he probes each man’s reasons for being there and discovers that some of the men harbor dangerous secrets.

Dunham does a commendable job of setting up an atmosphere of tension and paranoia, and he does so with a group of character actors whose faces may well be familiar to reasonably knowledgeable moviegoers. Dunham keeps that level of tension rising throughout until it boils over in a climactic scene that is staged with precision and artistic grace. While the dialogue can be a bit on the chest-thumping side, the real issue with the movie is that it is chronically underlit. I understand that Dunham wants to convey that groups like these operate in the shadows, but it doesn’t have to be literal for us to get the point. Still, this is a mighty fine film that flew under the radar. It’s worth checking out.

REASONS TO SEE: Keeps the tension building. The final confrontation is masterfully staged.
REASONS TO AVOID: Chronically underlit.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, violence and some adult themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This was Uruguay’s official submission for the 2019 Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film award.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Hoopla, Hulu, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/2/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 77% positive reviews, Metacritic: 62/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Betrayed
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Abe

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13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

(2016) True Life Drama (Paramount) John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Dominic Fumusa, Max Martini, Alexia Barlier, David Constabile, Peyman Moaadi, Matt Letscher, Toby Stephens, Demetrius Grosse, David Giuntoli, Mike Moriarty, David Furr, Kevin Kent, Freddie Stroma, Andrew Arrabito, Kenny Sheard, Christopher Dingli, Manuel Cauchi, Frida Cauchi. Directed by Michael Bay

One of the watershed moments of the last five years is the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. temporary embassy in Benghazi, Libya. Three people were killed, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Since then, it has been used as a rallying point for the right to display the incompetence of the current administration and to place themselves in the role as advocates for the victims. The left has come to see the attack as something of a conservative media Judas goat in which facts are obscured or downright fabricated for the sake of scoring political points, particularly against presidential candidate Hilary Clinton who was Secretary of State at the time.

The movie is based on the accounts of three members of the Global Response Staff, the private contractors employed by the CIA to protect agency installations worldwide. The GRS is mainly made up of ex-military members. Jack Silva (Krasinski), a veteran of GRS tours of duty, arrives in Benghazi to find a city in chaos. Their longtime military dictator, Moammar Qaddafi had fallen and the government was struggling to keep order. The city of Benghazi was essentially ruled by competing militias of which the 17-Feb was most closely allied with American interests.

Included in the six man team protecting the Annex, the CIA installation a mile from the embassy, was Tyrone “Rone” Woods (Dale), his good friend and commanding officer; Mark “Oz” Geist (Martini), Dave “Boon” Benton (Denman) – the team sniper, John “Tig” Tiegen (Fumusa) and Kris “Tonto” Paronto (Schreiber). The station manager, known only as “The Chief” (Constabile), seems annoyed by the presence of the security professionals and warns them against engaging with the locals. Even though tensions are high, the men have a lot of down time to think about their families and their choices to serve their country so far from home.

As the anniversary of the attack of 9/11 nears, Ambassador Chris Stevens (Letscher) arrives with a small Diplomatic Services security team with the aim of strengthening U.S./Libya relations. Despite security worries on the part of the GRS team, he is determined to stay at the temporary embassy which is a security nightmare defended mostly by members of the 17-Feb militia. When after darkness falls an attack on the embassy is made by militants, the militia runs for their lives and the embassy is left wide open for attack. The GRS team wants to head over there to rescue those who are being overrun but The Chief refuses to allow them to go, unwilling to let the Annex go undefended. However, as it became clear that those at the Embassy were in mortal danger, the GRS team elected to mount a rescue mission, realizing that the militants might well follow them back to the Annex and mount an attack there as well.

Bay is known for his big budget special effects extravaganza and while there are some well-choreographed combat sequences, this is a much smaller scale than we’re used to seeing from him. In some ways you get the sense that he tends to be better suited for the Transformers-style action epics, but he handles the scale here pretty well although there doesn’t seem to be a ton of character development. I had a hard time differentiating the GRS team from each other (there are also other GRS operatives who show up later, including Glen “Bub” Doherty (Stephens) who also perished in the attack. There is a lot of gung-ho testosterone bonding among the men, which is to be expected.

The filmmakers took great pains to recreate the embassy and annex in Malta, and the combat sequences look pretty darn realistic from my uneducated point of view. Those sequences are pretty terrifying as it must have been for those inside both compounds. I would have been the one balled up in a corner weeping for my mommy. I can’t imagine living through something like that.

What was unexpected for me was the emotional impact of the film, and that has more to do with the significance of the event rather than Bay’s skills as a filmmaker. I can imagine that if the characters were a little more drawn up I would have cared a great deal more and the film would have had even more resonance. As it is you leave the movie feeling genuine grief for those who didn’t make it, as well as admiration for those who did.

Earlier I discussed the politicization of the event and it bears discussion here. Much of how you see this film is likely to be colored by your politics. Some critics of a right-wing leaning have overpraised the film (in my opinion) while other critics of a left-wing leaning have been unduly harsh (again in my opinion). I think that Bay went out of his way to make the movie apolitical, but let’s face it; making the film at all was a political statement. As best I can, I tried to leave my political hat out of it and tried to judge the film purely on entertainment value, and found that this is a solid, better than average movie that in a season when most of the offerings out there are pretty awful, can be recommended with little reservation although again, you’ll tend to see this movie viewed through the lens of your political outlook. As long as that’s duly noted, you should be okay.

REASONS TO GO: A very realistic account. A powerful emotional experience.
REASONS TO STAY: Politicization or the events may inform your perspective. Not a lot of character development.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of combat-style violence, rough language and some images of bloody carnage.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Krasinski, Denman and Constabile all starred on the hit sitcom The Office.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/6/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 55% positive reviews. Metacritic: 48/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: American Sniper
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: The Finest Hours