This is the exact type of movie I avoid – war movies. The Hurt Locker (2008), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), American Sniper (2015), the list goes on and on. I have never seen those and I don’t plan on it either. Hyena Road immediately fell into this category of mine after I saw military people with guns and the typical scene where the guy has to make the choice to either shoot some kid with something under a blanket.
So… I’m writing this review because I saw this movie. Why you ask; why did this movie get special privileges so to speak. Well, its easy: this movie had a Canadian flag. The moment I saw that in the trailer, I actually started paying attention. All these years of seeing trailer after trailer of the exact same thing with a different title, something finally hooked me. Considering this seemed to the be Canadian version of war, I was incredibly intrigued.
When it comes to the acting, I was pleasantly surprised. I’d be lying if I said I knew any of the actors aside from the guy from the TV show, The Republic of Doyle. I actually thought he’d have a bigger role, but he didn't. I thought I wasn’t going to like the acting, but each person held their own. I loved the friendship that was formed between some of the guys. You could genuinely tell that they cared for one another and that they did have each others backs. I didn’t really care for the voice over, and I’m glad that it only happened a handful of times throughout the movie.
There were some pretty intense moments and the shooting scenes were done very well. Obviously I didn’t understand the military lingo used, and I’m fine with that because I understood the message they were conveying to one another; however, I will say that during the scenes that had a lot of rapid military dialogue, I felt a bit left out.
It’s not that it’s a slow movie, its just too long. There was a lot of filler that could have been left out mainly because I forgot it happened anyways. It was because of these moments that I didn’t always know what the plot was. It veered off track from time to time and made its way back onto the path.
I will say that I found that this movie didn’t really glorify war like the other Hollywood war movies I mentioned earlier. Albeit, I haven’t seen those movies, but I’ve seen the trailers and that’s really all you need to see.
I absolutely loved that this movie was All-Things-Canadian: from the writer, to the director, to the actors. That’s exactly what I wanted from this movie. A Canadian story as told by a Canadian, using Canadians. It defiantly gets bonus points for being Canadian. How many you ask… well, I’ll leave that up to you to decipher.
