Film Review: Kilo Two Bravo
Based on the true story of soldiers trapped in a minefield in Afghanistan, 'Kilo Two Bravo' features fine ensemble performances but is a tough sell because of the grueling subject matter.
2006, Helmand Province: An eight-man British parachute unit based at an encampment on a hilltop overlooking a strategically important dam is tasked primarily with protecting the hydroelectric station, which supplies power to much of the surrounding area. While not a exactly a cushy assignment, it's a relatively quiet posting removed from the front lines, and the men spend most of their time puttering around base camp, exercising, playing chess with water bottles, leafing though smutty magazines, re-reading cards and letters from home. But during what appears to be a fairly ordinary mission to dismantle a Taliban checkpoint, they enter an area that, unbeknownst to them, was heavily seeded with landmines years earlier. Inevitably someone–Corporal Hale (Benjamin O'Mahony)–steps on one, blowing off most of his right leg below the knee, leaving the rest of the group to keep him, and themselves, alive and in one piece until help arrives.
Kilo Two Bravo is essentially a one-set drama, but it feels anything but stage-bound: The sandy, rolling, rock-studded terrain is almost a character in its own right, both harshly beautiful and utterly hostile to the increasingly desperate soldiers, made all the more so because there's nothing they can do except wait. Breaking with formula (and by all accounts sticking close to the facts), no one has an operatic meltdown, but the ensemble cast does an exceptional job of conveying the fact that their characters are all keeping it together–barely–by sheer force of will, discipline and mutual support. For U.S. audiences in particular, the fact that most are unknowns makes an already compelling story feel more disturbingly real–there are no movie-star faces to pull you out of the fiction, though “Game of Thrones” fans will recognize Mark Stanley under the dust and grime. It also gives a little extra grit to the shredded flesh and leaking blood, which is appropriate to brutal damage done by explosive devises. While hardly a fun time at the movies, Kilo Two Bravo is a fine piece by first-time feature director Paul Katis, working from a screenplay by Tom Williams.
The film was originally released in the U.K. as Kajaki: The True Story, Kajaki being the name of the dam; it was no doubt changed because the name, while familiar in the U.K., would have no meaning for U.S. audiences.
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