Beasts of No Nation

A film meant to be a powerful telling of the wars in Africa and how it is ravaging the youth there. A time meant for the children to be educated instead is spent learning how to become a killing machine. Throw in Idris Alba to play the lead role of a commandant of a guerrilla, one expects a dark and gripping tale. However the story of young Abu who is throw apart from his family by war into the hands of the guerrillas only leaves you mildly interested in the events that unfold in the movie in spite of the message being important and one that everyone should pay heed to.

Rating: * +

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Caterpillar

Lieutenant Kurakowa returns home from the Sino-Japanese war as a decorated war hero. He is literally a husk of his former self with his limbs torn off and no auditory perception. But that does not stop him from abusing his wife who in turns feels duty bound to take care of his needs. A disturbing film that examines the effect of Japanese wars on both the soldiers and their families.

Rating: * * +

In the Land of Blood and Honey

The movie starts gently with a man and a woman flirting on the dance floor. Their tryst is rudely interrupted by an explosion that the director cleverly uses to mark the intrusion of the Bosnian war into lives of the common folk. Next time the couple meet, Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) and Danijel (Goran Kostic) find themselves at the opposite sides of the ethnic conflict. Ajla being Muslim Bosnian is held captive by the Serbs and as coincidence or fate would have it, the commanding officer of the unit is Danijel. The laws of attraction paying scant attention to ethnicity, rears it heads as the two plunge down the illicit relationship road that turns darker as the movie flows. The story line is not original as the scenario has been visited before in Earth: 1947 and Lust, Caution. However nothing should be taken away from Angelina Jolie given that it is her debut as a director. She just needs to work on getting stillness right.

Rating: * * *

The Hurt Locker

The camera follows an US army bomb squad through the treacherous streets of Iraq. You are given the eerie feeling that every object could be a bomb and anyone could be the detonator. But the feelings gets old very quickly and you want a few more layers to the film which is sadly lacking. With the hype surrounding the film, it seemed destined to be placed alongside Platoon and Apocalypse Now. That will not be the case in my book. 

Rating: * *