Army of One (2016) Review

For a film having a stellar cast including Nicolas Cage and Russell Brand and directed by The Dictator director Larry Charles and featuring a story based on the real-life event of an American citizen traveling to Pakistan to capture Osama Bin Laden, Army of One (2016) is far from picture perfect.

The acting is great, the direction and costume design are both laudible, but the script by Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman falls flat and starts to get interesting only when Nic Cage's Gary Faulkner reaches Pakistan, but by then 60% of the film has passed and 80% of viewers would have quit watching before then - the first half is just that tedious.

The saving grace of the movie is of course Nicolas Cage who portrays Faulkner to the letter (just watch the real-life footage shown during the credits). Russell Brand and the rest of the cast also do a splendid job. But when the screenplay reeks of ennui then Cage, Brand and Charles are simply not enough to save this critique of religion, patriotism and politics.

Maybe if Charles had a better writing team comprised of at least Sacha Baron Cohen then this flick wouldn't have been such a drag. Heck, even reading a 300 word article on the actual "life is stranger than fiction" event would've been more entertaining. And would have saved my 92 minutes.

P.S. To the makers of this movie: The official language of Pakistan is Urdu not Arabic. 😂😂

The Rating: 1.5 out of 4