American soldier Andrew Briggman (Nat Wolff) is an innocent new recruit sent to serve in Afghanistan. His sergeant tries to win hearts and minds but gets blown up by an IED. His new leader is Sergeant Deeks (Alexander Skarsgård) who is ruthless hunting for the bomb maker. A suspicious killing of an Afghan happens and Briggman suspects Deeks of directing the illegal death.

This is adapted from the doc of a true story. I didn't see the doc and I'm not judging this on its accuracy. In fact, any accuracy may hinder the drama of the movie. I also don't want to judge this based on how this makes the military look. As a story, the fact that Deeks catches Briggman so early makes the intensity of the drama half as high. Part of the intensity is not knowing whether Deeks knows. The fact that he's shown to know lessens the drama. Also, Briggman is too stupid in pursuing the investigation. He obviously gets discovered and gets diminished as a thinking character. Overall, there is some good drama and good acting but it's all rather less than optimal.

So I just realized they made the story before. This is a true story kind of thing and in 2013 there was another version of this one (which was made 2019 as you can see). Not sure how it compares to that version, but I can tell you that the actors are really good in this one.

And the story is quite solid of course. Really mad if you think about it. It is given a sort of explanation with the ... explosive beginning (no pun intended),but you know things go too far quite early on. We have a moral compass ... even if or when at first we see a very cool boss. Never trust them too much, something might be wrong with them ... and lo and behold, I would say something is! Very well played, which really helps the movie a lot. You can feel the stress and anxiety of our lead character ... and you can feel for him, if you are a sane person ... his struggle and his choices! Even if you disagree.

Overall this is a consistent war drama movie, exposing the war crimes commited by a group of soldiers during the afghanistan occupation. A young soldier believing in a greater good joins the US military and as his sargent gets killed by an IED a replacement sergeant approaches the things in the squad in a different way, changing the the structure and the patrol methods in interacting with civilians. Shocked by the authoritarism and manipulation of his friends the young soldier exposes the sergeant to the authorities. Don't let the low rating of this movie prevent you from watching it, american audience simply don't want to admitit the crimes commited in wars they were involved into. 7/10