In a prologue scene this movie starts by introducing the main characters an our team: A special task force that operates outside of the law and is supported by bleeding edge high tech gadgets, that allow them to infiltrate buildings without problems and leave as fast as they came, leaving no traces for the police to find.

We then get the background story of our main protagonist James Silva, portrayed by Mark Wahlberg, as timelapse in the opening titles, and then the story finally starts: Our main setting is Asia, we have Silvas team on a new mission - a raid goes totally wrong and Silva is extremely hard and unfair with his team (which he is the entire time from this point on). While at the US embassy from where the team operates, they get a visit from a local (portrayed by Iko Uwais) who has some important information for the team, that makes them want to dirve 22 miles through the city towards an airport. To do so they terminate their contracts and call out the "overwatch" operation - a voice over explains: Now our team is stateless and therefore they become something higher, something special, something overly patriotic. And of course these 22 miles become running the gauntlet....

I was looking really forward to this movie from the very first trailer, and I was totally in the mood for this movie as I was already watching M:I 1-6 and The Equalizer one and two, so I was in the mood for a good action movie. I also loved the premises: An paramilitary operation team operating in a foreign country being outnumbered while a catastrophe emerges - that reminds me of movies such as Black Hawk Down or 13 Hours which are two of my most favorite movies.

The action scenes on this movie are pretty realistic, it seems reasonable what each character can bear unless they break down (much better than most other action movies), the wounds look realistik and our team gets cut down one by one pretty fast. The action isn't reduced to only shootings and fast car chases, but also include man to man fights, and of course Iko Uwais is the guy that stands out most, who will show us some pretty crazy moves and fighting choreographies. These aspects as well as the question what this movie is probably aiming at story-wise make this movie really interesting to watch and also pretty entertaining.

However, the story is also the strongest negative aspect: It is incredible muddled, and many things have to be explained with an voice over from the off, so that the viewer gets whats actually going on. Also there is absolutely no character development, and the crew stays as shallow as possible, making nearly everybody replaceable. Therefore you also don't have any sympathies towards any of the characters, allowing for no emotional bonds to evolve and ultimately in the end you don't care about any of the characters dying, steeling those scenes the dramatic effect they should have had on the viewer. And even for the main character we hardly know anything, except for the view pointers in the opening titles, but that's not enough and even worse: His character is the most exaggerated and therefore does he not only become unsympathetic with the viewer but also unbelievable.

To add to the confusion, a number of story elements are told either via an interview with Silvas (that seems to be taking place in the future), or by cutting either into a top secret hight tech operation center, or an Russian aircraft (it is not explained why). These cuts are both unnecessary and often also don't bare any logic, and you could have left them out entirely and the movie would have still functioned. Even in these scenes with again high ranking actors such as John Malkovich, non of the characters is essential in any way and totally replaceable. And most of the dialogues either consist of exchanging hostilities or of technobabble.

And even though Uwais is great, after the first fighting scenes one will be pretty disappointed because most of the fighting takes place in the dark and additionally there is a lot of cuts, so that a lot of fun is taken out of these scenes.

And then there is the finale, which to me was a kick in the teeth. The resolution seems so artificially constructed, stupid and is also full of logic holes that it takes away a lot of the fun, as you start to believe that the filmmakers question your intelligence. Worst of all, it's an open end that seems to be made for a second part. In no way was this satisfying.

This movie had great potential but wastes it entirely.