Review: Mine Is Far Better Than It Looks
- Apr 29, 2017
- 2 min read
One move and you’re dead. It isn’t an idle threat, nor is it command, it’s a fact. There’s a couple hundred grams of explosive buried just beneath your foot. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s more than enough to kill, if you’re lucky. You’re more likely to lose a limb, or two, and bleed to death in the desert. You can wait for someone to get you, but they could take more than two days, or you can can try to remove the device yourself, a difficult operation when you’re not on top of it. But don’t forget, one slip up and it’s game over.
Following a failed assassination, Mike (Armie Hammer) a US Marine, finds himself trapped and alone in the middle of the desert. He has stood upon hidden death, a landmine, one of more than 30 million buried across the country. He’s been told the soonest he can get out is in 52 hours and he’ll just have to survive until then. Between sandstorms, enemy guerilla fighters and the unrelenting heat of the sun, it’ll take everything Mike has to remain alive.
Armie Hammer has not had a lot of luck leading films. The Lone Ranger and The Man From UNCLE were less than stellar to say the least. But I suppose being stuck in a desert brings out the best in people. Here he gives what is probably his best performance, at least that I’ve seen. Even if it is mostly hallucinating, yelling and the occasional bit of confusion, he manages to sell it incredibly well. But the real star is Clint Dyer, who plays a Berber living a few hours from where Mike is trapped. He slowly tells mike his story in his daily visits, bringing him water, asking him why he’s out in the desert, telling him to move on. He’s got a great revelation in the last act and has hands down the best moment in the movie.
While it’s plot, at least on the surface, is simple, they cram in a whole lot of backstory and while it adds nothing to the film, seriously, you could cut it out and lose nothing, but it’s done well enough. The actual plot gets bogged down in the last half hour as the flashbacks become an almost continuous sequence and it does break the flough of the movie. The ending gets a little muddled as the line between reality and Mike’s numerous hallucinations begins to blur but it’s solid overall.
There’s not a lot to Mine and while the secondary plot is nothing more than throwaway exposition, the main component of the movie is excellent. It’s tense, harsh, at times downright scary, and it will keep you watching right till the end.
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