One Shot
An elite squad of Navy SEAL's, on a covert mission to transport a prisoner off a CIA black site island prison, are trapped when insurgents attack while trying to extract the same prisoner.
Like its infinitely more illustrious predecessors - Alejandro G. Iñárritu‘s Birdman and Sam Mendes’ 1917 - British director Nunn’s action thriller was purportedly shot in one continuous take (although some reviews have cast doubt over how true this is and whether or not some subtle editing has been applied here and there). In the past films like this would have starred Chuck Norris - think Delta Force and its sequel - and be a big attraction on the DTV scene but they’re now known as VOD specials in the age of instant streaming services. In the spirit of DTV, One Shot features a cast line up that is headlined by a B movie icon and co-starring fallen on hard times Hollywood types.
As Navy Seal commando Lieutenant Jake Harris, the main draw is undoubtedly amiable Brummie action star Scott Adkins closely followed by his perfectly unruffled, luxuriant head of hair (you’ll know what I mean if you watch the film). In support, former Twilight star Ashley Greene Khoury plays a rookie junior CIA analyst reluctantly tasked with gleaning integral intelligence - she’s akin to Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty from Wish. Finally, we have Hollywood’s answer to Dorian Gray - Ryan Phillippe as perma angry black site boss Jack Yorke. The main protagonists are played by the very cool looking former MMA fighter turned actor Jess Liaudin (French Algerian mercenary Hakim Cheref) and regular Adkins martial arts/stunt collaborator Lee Charles - a former 6 times kickboxing champion who trained under Benny “The Jet” Urquidez - as Liaudin’s imposing 2nd in command Dhelkor.
The plot is the stuff of military action film tropes, the politics on terrorism and US government foreign policy might be clunky, and it was actually filmed in Suffolk. But all this doesn’t really matter when you have Scott Adkins doing Scott Adkins things. And do them with aplomb he does. The action set pieces are actually rather perfunctory until around the forty five minute mark - when the physical prowess of Adkins married with the nifty camerawork really kicks things into motion. In the film’s standout sequence, utilising only his combat knife, Adkins’ Harris has to undertake a stealth mission to locate the site’s radio comms room to request for military back-up. Like an action version of the famous Goodfellas restaurant tracking scene, the camera follows Adkins in a third person POV - in what could be a live action version of the videogame Call of Duty - as he stealthily and brutally dispatches a series of foot soldiers without a single gunshot being fired.
Elsewhere, the impressive action choreography of Tim Man (another of Adkins’ regular stunt crew) comes to the fore. For the finale, One Shot culminates with Adkins facing brutal encounters with first Dhelkor, and then Liaudin’s Cheref. In keeping with the film’s raw “in the moment” style, these MMA influenced set pieces are bruising and violent affairs that are more reminiscent of the pain inflicted in Gareth Evans’ The Raid rather than the classic 80s/90s DTV action films of Norris, Kosugi, Dudikoff et al that we grew up with. Whatever his shortcomings as an actor, Adkins is undoubtedly currently the best in the business at offering this type of B-movie action thrills. In a world of egotistical Hollywood stars, it is refreshing that someone like Adkins - who appears to be a genuinely nice guy from his YouTube Art of Action series - is living the dream by being involved in the type of films that he himself was inspired by in his youth.