The Wall
Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Cena, Laith Nakli
Directed by Doug Liman
[rating: 3/5]
Reviewed by Michael Dalton
The Wall may be the most frustrating war film of the century. The setup, two soldiers in the Iraq desert, seemingly alone, and then flanked by a sniper, is neat and tidy. Aaron Taylor-Johnson in a, more or less, one man show carries it with great energy and commitment, and musclehead John Cena, slowly becoming an actor (he gave us a sexy funnyman in Amy Schumer’s aptly titled Trainwreck), delivers solid support. Director Doug Liman and first time screenwriter Dwain Worrell have something to say and they spell it out plainly and distinctly. The Iraqis don’t want the American military on their soil and if they had their way, they’d staple these intruders’ tongues to their chins. Liman, as demonstrated in Edge of Tomorrow and The Bourne Identity, has an excellent visual sense. Usually his adventures are alive with content (there’s almost too much to look at) but here he strips it back for stark raving terror and it works. This is a dusty film, everything’s bleached out with only bloody wounds providing a contrast.
At a sharp 88 minutes, Liman, who shot the film in 14 days in the Mojave Desert, pushes it as far as the shaky story will allow. You want Sergeant Isaac (Taylor-Johnson), also known as Eyes, to win this cruel battle. With his partner down and possibly dead, he’s trapped behind a shaky brick wall with a leaking water bottle, a half broken radio, little room to move and just as much hope for survival. At a certain level, this is a torture porn excursion; it makes you angry and tense and it recalls the thriller Buried that saw Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin-like box where his only connection to the outside world was his phone. Here, the unseen sniper, presumably hiding amongst a huge pile of garbage, toys with his prey, forcing Eyes to face the intrusive nature of his own mission and of course his mortality. The wall itself was once part of a children’s school and its slowly crumbling. To talk about where the film fails would mean providing spoilers but it’s enough to know that until then, Liman and Taylor-Johnson keeps it tight as a drum. This sniper, possibly the notorious widowmaker Juba, is a cunning and tricky opponent, at one point adopting an American accent. He even knows where to hit Eyes with a bullet to cause a slow fatal bleed. “We’re not so different, you and I”, he taunts.
Laith Nakli as the unseen sniper delivers his dialogue with menacing calm as Eyes rolls around in the dirt, looking for a hole in the wall to try and gauge the villain’s position (the garbage pile is a great visual trick) but the futility hangs heavy. Liman nails the vulnerability of his hero as the final moments reach a feverish pitch (I confess I could barely breathe) and you’ll be barracking for Eyes, even as your commitment fades.
