The Wall (2017) Review

This is a small movie by Doug Liman and Amazon Studios taking place in the latter half of 2007.  The American-Iraqi war has ended, but two American soldiers have been at a contractor’s oil pipeline for the past 20 hours.  They want to make sure no one is still around the site. Staff Sergeant Matthews (John Cena) decides to head down to where many men lie dead because of an Iraqi sniper who was later named Juba (Laith Nakli). Juba is never seen on-screen; he is behind the sniper talking to Sergeant Allen “Izes” Issac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) via radio communication.

As Matthews walks around, he notices that all the dead men have been shot in the head, as stated by Issac earlier.  Seconds later, Matthews is shot in the lower abdomen.  Issac runs down but is also shot at and is hit in the lower right quadriceps/upper knee. He limps towards a stone wall and is forced to leave Matthews out in the open.

From this point onward, it is only Juba and Issac. Juba continues to ask questions about Issac’s life. Issac does his best to locate Juba’s position in which there are only three or four places that he could be hiding.  This is about where the movie is the most intense and heart-pounding.

I give this movie a 9/10, B+, 4/5 Geek Motivation rating.  It is rather short, about 90 minutes.  I am keeping track of what I have seen this year on lettboxd and put it at #9 out of the 24 movies that I plan on seeing.