The Squad

Unfortunately The Squad fails to deliver on its interesting premise and promising first ten minutes. Competent camera work and a decent cast is unable to make up for a lack of plot, structure or coherent direction. I can appreciate what the director was attempting to do with lingering close-ups of grim, suffering faces, subtle sound cues and atmospheric lighting, but one can only rely on those techniques so long before delivering some kind of pay-off. For me the film completely failed to rack up any tension or arrive at a destination. I was more concerned with wondering why the characters - supposedly trained soldiers in a war zone - were behaving more like angsty teens who've fallen out with their parents.

The message that in a civil war everyone looks like the enemy could have been portrayed far more effectively without tacking on a poorly-realized supernatural element. The film-makers tried to do both and ended up with neither. I hate using the word, but 'boring' really is the only word that comes to mind.