Hyena Road
I have seen Hyena Road as well, I went on the weekend with my Son and having endured Paul Gross’s earlier horrid motion picture Passchendaele, my expectations for this movie were not that high. From my perspective these suspensions were correct and I would not recommend this movie.
I thought that the best segments were those that Paul Gross had actually shot in theatre and it was interesting to see some familiar locations in KAF. As for the plot and story, I found it simplistic and boring and I could not identify with any of the characters and what I saw were a handful of Canadian actors playacting army. The movie was written by Paul Gross so the story and plot had all of his hallmark movie script 101 components such as; rogue main character, romantic subplot and overly emotional climax and ending which was interwoven with a storyline that was more fitting of a Due North episode. This movie would give the average person with no military experience the impression that when in Afghanistan, no-one shaved and that most people walked around with their hands in their pockets and their shirt sleeve buttons undone. Of course those who play act at being in the army have no idea about the formalities that are observed within the military. For example, besides the trait of constantly walking around with hands stuffed in pockets, there were scenes with ‘military’ personnel learning against furniture and walls during a meeting with the Task Force Commander and for some reason only known to the production crew, throughout the movie the Commander seemed to be calling his RSM by a nickname.
It was blatantly obvious that this motion picture was an amalgam of film footage taken in Afghanistan in 2010 as well as scenes shot in both Shilo and Jordan. It looked like DNDs contribution to the movie was no more than a handful of vehicles and a lone M777.
It is easy to say that this is low budget and Canadian which is in my opinion an overly employed poor excuse. For once again and just like the Passchendaele movie; had Mr Gross done some real research and in this case actually interviewed some Afghan Veterans, he could have woven and interesting and believable story producing a much better movie with the resources that he had at his disposal.
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