Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Year Released: 2015
Rating: 2.0
After his father and siblings are killed in a war in Africa, prepubescent Agu (Abraham Attah) is recruited as a child soldier for the Native Defense Group (NDF) by the ruthless 'Commandant' (Idris Elba) and forced to witness - and even partake in - atrocities committed by the faction. Fukunaga takes a visceral approach - as opposed to an intellectual or political one - to the novel by Uzodinma Iweala, launching the viewer face first into graphic violence and ghastliness, yet he comes from the Soderbergh School of Mechanical Filmmaking: it's a well-shot slideshow of horrors, yet it never stings on a deeper level (as opposed to Klimov's Come and See, which Fukunaga most likely has seen). Elba and Attah are superb in their roles - especially Elba, whose charisma could feasibly attract a horde of loyalists - but its director is too busy tinting his frames and planning tracking shots to address bigger issues involving the cruel "beasts" in the "unnamed nation."
