Review: American Renegades

Darling Hubby and I usually watch a military movie on Memorial Day when we're finished with the usual cookout and guests.

This year, we found American Renegades on Amazon Prime Viewing. You'll notice on the movie poster at left that it's billed as Renegades, and that's one of the reasons this movie didn't succeed as a theatrical release or a DVD rental release.

Confused Marketing

The movie production company and/or their marketing department didn't have a firm grasp on how to market the film that opens with heroics by a Navy S.E.A.L. team.

The one-liner blurb is, "A team of Navy SEALs discover an underwater treasure in a Bosnian lake."

I guess they couldn't decide if it was a movie about the exploits of a SEAL team or a caper flick or whatever combination of all of that might be.

I think if it had been promoted as a "caper" flick, it may have succeeded. Marketing is everything when it comes to entertainment.

The First-Billed Cast

Produced by Luc Besson and Raphaël Benolieland, the film was directed by Steven Quale. Seeing the name Luc Besson, you know it will be an action flick. When I saw the names of the cast members, I knew I wanted to watch this film simply because J.K. Simmons was in it.

He always delivers the kind of performance where you believe he really is that character. In this movie, Simmons stars as Levin, the commanding officer. Even though he's not on screen a lot, his performance is memorable.

The rest of the first-billed cast are:

• Sullivan Stapleton of Strike Back fame as Matt Barnes
• Charlie Bewley as Stanton Baker (Twilight: New Moon)
• Sylvia Hoeks as Lara Simic (Blade Runner 2043)
• Joshua Henry as Ben Moran (Army Wives)
• Diarmaid Murtagh as Kurt Duffy (Sons of Liberty, The Monuments Men)
• Dimitri Leonidas as Jack Porter (The Monuments Men)
• Clemens Schick as Petrovic (Point Break remake, Overdrive)
• Ewen Bremner as Jim Rainey (T2: Trainspotting, Wonder Woman)
• Peter Davor as General Milic (Fast Forward)
• Mahamadou Coulibaly as Detroit Turner (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets)
• Alain Blazevic as Boris (Spides in post-production)
• Karim Cherif as Milenko (mostly European films)
• Denis Brizic as Kurjak (mostly European films)
• Marko Cindric as Peter the Bartender (Game of Thrones).

Now dubbed American Renegades, this film is a caper flick with intelligence, heart, emotion, some Nazi history thrown in, heroic action, and selfless generosity.

Takeaway Truth

Give this film a look. I think you might like it.