On the heels of last fall’s Aftermath, the better of the two armored-car-robbery-on-a-bridge movies that came out within a week of one another (the less said about Sylvester Stallone’s abysmal Armor, the better), Mason Gooding (Scream) and Dylan “Not Jughead” Sprouse are back for another team up. This time they team up for Under Fire, a throwback action comedy that is itself a follow up to director Steven C. Miller’s 2024 Werewolves, which if you haven’t seen, is a fine time.
Griff (Sprouse) and Abbott (Gooding) are an FBI and DEA agent, respectively. Unbeknownst to each other, they’ve both gone undercover to infiltrate and take down a violent drug cartel. Not great at background checks, this particular cartel. When a remote desert meetup goes bad, they find themselves pinned down by a sniper and must team up in order to survive.
[Related Reading: 'Armor' Movie Review]
The first act of the script by Armor co-writers Cory Todd Hughes and Adrian Speckert plays like a late-‘80s/early-‘90s buddy cop flick. Griff and Abbott banter back and forth, crack on each other, and generally smart ass around. Gooding and Sprouse have their own charisma and the two of them together are clearly having a damn good time. It’s their chemistry that carries most of the movie as they bicker like an old married couple.
Act two, the bulk of the 92-minute run time, is basically the two leads crouching behind an SUV trying not to get shot. While they’re static and stuck in one place, the movie often feels static and stuck in place during this stretch. They try one thing, it doesn’t work, they try another. Rinse and repeat. All the while they argue and jab, especially once their true identities come to light, which can be entertaining, but just as often the jokes land in the dirt. The dialogue shoehorns in bits of history and backstory for both, some of which work authentically, some of which are horrifically contrived. Most of the attempts to create emotional weight fall flat. You see the pattern.
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Whatever else you can say about Miller as a filmmaker, his direction is energetic as hell. If you have a chance to listen to him talk about his shooting style and how he works on set, it’s interesting and well worth checking out. He fills the frame with plenty of blood and violence—if you love slow-motion shots of CGI bullets blowing through a dude’s cheek, you’re in luck. Lean on that and the energy between the two leads, and that’ll hopefully carry you through some of the down times.
A certain level of the suspension of disbelief is necessary and expected for any film, but Under Fire may test your limits on this front, especially when it comes to continuity and decision-making. Sometimes they’re trapped in place and the smallest glimpse of flesh that comes into view gets shot at. Other times they’re standing basically in full view and they’re fine. One moment the sniper appears to be the greatest marksman of all time, the next he can’t make the easiest shot he’s had all day. All the tires have been shot out, but their vehicle drives just fine. These are but a few examples among many. Lots of movies feature characters making questionable decisions and ask the audience to roll with it, but there are some true headscratchers here.
[Related Reading: 'Operation Endgame' Movie Review]
Miller brings a frenetic run-and-gun mentality to Under Fire, which works well with the bouncy antagonism and camaraderie between the two leads. If they keep making movies together, I’ll probably keep watching. The first and third acts proceed at a nice clip, but the middle moves in fits and starts. If you can get past the occasional misfire, a twist that’s obvious thanks to the law of economy of characters, and stretch your credulity, there’s a decent amount of throwaway fun to be had. You've seen much better, but you've also seen much worse. [Grade: C+]
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