Day 23: The Objective (2009)

The Objective (2009)
Starring: Jonas Ball, Matthew R Anderson, Jon Huertas
Category: New(ish)
Plot Tags: unexplained phenomena, breakdown, survival
Original release: Feb 6th, 2009
Format viewed: DVD - rented from Vulcan, naturally
Directed by: Daniel Myrick
Written by: Daniel Myrick
Distributed by: IFC Films

This was an interesting movie - really deep when it comes to concept and the idea of it all but lacks somewhat in the forward moving structure leaving some scenes kind of repetitive. So on the one hand, I really dug it, but on the other hand I wished they'dve made better choices when it came to putting people in peril and advancing the story forward hand in hand. It's like in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy keeps stopping and getting involved with each of the characters there en route to the Emerald City. If they had a few more characters for her to pick up, it would get pretty tiresome but with three, works pretty well. In this film, the instances of 'stoppage' because of attack or unexplained stuff count over 7 or 8 times with not a ton of variation. This raises tension but also robs itself of more tension because of the repetitiveness. The director also did Blair Witch Project, so annoying repetitiveness might be in his blood.

Okay, the story itself, basically we have a highly trained team of soldiers (including Jon Huerta from Castle) being assigned to accompany a CIA operative in Afghanistan to find a cleric guy with sensitive information about, I think, weapons or trade routes or some such. They set out on this assignment in the desert (filmed beautifully in Morocco and Iraq, crazily enough) and are soon set upon by a series of strange events - lights that look like headlights heading towards them and then separating off and flying into the sky, the deafening sound of a helicopter overhead without being able to see it, no bodies left after a firefight with militants and on from there. The CIA guy is pretty set in on this infrared camera thing where he is documenting everything that is happening. It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that something else is going on and as the group size dwindles, an encounter with a desert dweller guy goes badly etc, the CIA guys true motives become more clear and their chances at survival become less and less likely but not because of some big ass desert monster or something. There is a whole secondary level of breakdown psychology that comes into play at this point and it would be a shame to ruin it - especially considering the last (give/take) 10 minutes of the film. They really amp up the reality of what is going on and hammer home the situation these soldiers are/were in and what the real goal was.

I'm being intentionally vague here because, again, the last 1/3 of the movie is just excellent. I wish to God the first 2/3rds had the same level of urgency and structure because the ending is nothing short of brilliant and unnerving and interesting. I will say that this is a stretch to call a horror movie, but, if you can work in mental breakdown, misbegotten missions as sources of horror, then it qualifies. I'll take an overall concept like in The Objective much more than a standard horror type setup/military like in something like Dead Birds where NOTHING FREAKING HAPPENS. So anyway, there you go.