Review of Hard Kill (2020) by Tbradford989 — 14 Jan 2021

Let me first say that I started an account because of some of the things I noticed in this film. I am no military expert but I am quite good at noticing continuity errors and details others seem to miss. With that being said I will give a short review and point out some things I noticed that are unforgivable in my opinion.

It just seems like for the year it is and how far action films have come they would have so many examples of what to do and not to do. I get a strong feeling that the director was taking a stab at this thinking action is easy with a few key elements. Our standards have come up a lot in the passed few years even for action scenes shot by amateur's on YouTube. The acting from the main character and his military friends wasnt horrible but it left something to be desired. This could of been fixed with a fun story and a little heart. The other glaring things I noticed about the crew and their skills, weapons, optics and about everything else seemed to scream low budget and lack of prep/training for this entire film. These highly trained military types are lined up in front of a window talking about all the cover options the enemy has and they were rarely seen behind adequate cover. Several minutes into the fight the main character racks his pistol as if he hadn't done that before the twenty armed men came in the building? Later you see one guy with what seems to be a 30 dollar tasco red dot on his AR. This is fine for the back yard but I sincerely doubt someone that does this for a living would bet their life on that optic. The lack of weapon discipline and skill that these guys should have looks really out of place in several scenes and over all just looks pretty bad. The stealth attacks added a little flare and could of been cool if there werent so many questions left unanswered about nearly everything else. For instance why leave bodies out in the open, and not pick up their weapons? You came "unprepared" to seem outnumbered but take no opportunity to multiply your forces? At some point later (i skipped ahead a lot because I found it hard to watch) they finally all get their rifles and actually decide to fight. I get that they didnt want the daughter to get hurt but they had already been attacked a few times at this point so it makes little sense. The effort coming from Bruce Willis was what I would call sub par or even lacking heart or any real feeling. The only thing I could feel from him was the hatred for the script and a longing for the good old days. When he mentioned his daughter being held captive he seemed to show very little emotion. Im pretty sure there was a double for when they were walking in to the building. He was probably present for one day to shoot this. They took a few takes and boom done and he was on the way out of town. I cant blame them for saving money but it really shows. A few other things I noticed were continuity related and made this very hard for me to watch. I mentioned amateur's on youtube earlier because I have seen gunplay with much better attention to detail and skill. Pause the movie at 19:40ish and you should notive the mans rifle has no optic or iron sight on the rear. Perhaps a budget issue but an airsoft sight for ten dollars could of fixed this. Then later at around 32:40 you can see paintballs hitting around the windows? Like training rounds that didn't get edited out for effects later or what? Im sure there are many more ill never find since I find it hard to watch. Oh and dont forget the half assed head bad dude with a Chrome Desert Eagle... oh boy. Its not the 80s any more. I could maybe forgive the low budget stuff but missing sights and an over all lack of heart killed it easily for me. Have a few beers and laugh at this with some buddies while freeze framing the glaring errors.