Hyena Road (2016)

This is an outstanding war film. As others have commented, it examines the Afghanistan conflict in a particularly Canadian way --- which means that each character has a distinct point of view and a unique place in the world. The film makes clear not only that each understands his/her situation differently, but also that each viewpoint merits the full weight of our attention and consideration. Both the nobility of sacrifice and the utter senselessness of war are captured. There have been many well-made recent films about our current conflict with the Islamic world. This is certainly one of the best of them.

Great writing, acting and direction.I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and will watch it again and again.I highly recommend this film. I have watched many a war movie and this covers every emotion that these men and women could possibly go through when away from home and family. The story was riveting. The writer didn't need to tell it through sex and drugs as so many movies now do. The music could have been quieter,at one time it was hard to hear what the actor was saying.There were many actors that I haven't seen much of and kudos to them for such a wonderful performance. Have to admit I did develop quite a crush on that white haired devil, oh yeah,pleased this old lady lol

Can tell a lot of effort went into production, and a sincere effort was made at authenticity...but still comes off as a movie that doesn't take itself very seriously, played by actors who take themselves perhaps too seriously. At times I wasn't entirely sure this wasn't a deliberately tongue-in-cheek drama with the aim of a little awkward comic relief; however, neither one works well as it is neither here nor there. Perhaps soap-opera-ish would be a good descriptor in terms of overall production value, not content per se'.The combat scenes, while not poorly acted or choreographed, still come off as a little bit staged. Sometimes it's just the little things, like uniforms not being quite dirty enough after soldiers were supposedly rolling around in the mountains for a few hours; sometimes the mountains look a little bit more like the Arizona Rockies than Afghanistan. Sometimes The Afghani villagers look a little bit too clean, well fed, and smooth-skinned to be actual Afghani villagers. The way the Taliban swarm en-masse, hail-mary style is just not how they tend to move tactically in the real world. Like I said, the little things. the sniper scope reticle they give us a peek through is, thankfully, not the usual nonsense with all sorts of colors and numbers and flashing lights, as is seen in some movies. it's not the standard Mil Dot reticle, but at least it's half believable.Ultimately, on a budget, just so much can really be put into production. overall, not a terrible movie, perhaps as an amateur military historian who's watched more than my fair share of combat helmet cams, I'm a bit more tuned in to the minutiae. So be it...overall, I'd give it a 7 for effort, and a 5 for final product, so at 6 I think is a fair score.

Hyena Road is a Canadian "US Sniper" style war flick. Its replete with the usual black and white "we are the good guys" simplistic nonsense, that conveniently overlooks the key question; why are Western forces present in a country like Afghanistan? What you get instead is a tale of good Canadian solders versus the bad old Afghani "insurgents". There's lots of tough guy swearing, apparently the more you say "fuck" the tougher you are or, at least, sound. The storyline is a loose affair that wanders around looking at the soldiers various engagements in the field. Its day in the life stuff and if you like military tales of this variety, you could do worse. The acting is reasonable and the characterizations, not too over the top. All in all a rather shallow watch, that fails, like so many in this genre, to ask the hard questions. Five out of ten from me.