One Shot
DTV action star Scott Adkins goes oner and doner with "One Shot."
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As the unofficial President of the Scott Adkins Fan Club, I’m duty-bound to review “One Shot” (now in select theaters and on VOD).
“One Shot” is a reunion between Adkins and director James Nunn (they previously collaborated on “Green Street 3: Never Back Down” and “Eliminators”) that exists solely to show off the gimmick of being filmed entirely in a oner à la Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Birdman” and Sam Mendes’ “1917.” (Obviously, edits exist here. They’re just subtly hidden much like they were in those aforementioned titles.)
Navy SEAL Jake Harris (Adkins) and his team have been tasked with escorting junior CIA analyst Zoe Anderson (Ashley Greene Khoury) to a black site island prison overseen by Jack Yorke (Ryan Phillippe) in order to transport suspected terrorist Amin Mansur (Waleed Elgadi). Anderson has intel suggesting Mansur knows the details of a plot to dirty bomb the State of the Union. Yorke doesn’t want to relinquish his prisoner. Before the two can work out their squabbles a band of terrorists led by Hakim Charef (French UFC fighter Jess Liaudin) strike the compound – they too have their sights set on Mansur. What ensues in reminiscent of “Assault on Precinct 13” (either John Carpenter’s 1976 original or Jean-François Richet’s 2005 remake).
The continuous take both benefits and derails “One Shot.” It does serve as a wonderful showcase for Adkins’ particular set of skills (Seriously, I could watch this dude sneak around stealthily knifing insurgents for an hour and a half like he’s a combination of Sam Fisher from “Splinter Cell” and Michael Myers.) Sadly, the gimmick also makes the movie feel as if it’s on rails like a video game. Phillippe is an actor I’ve often enjoyed (he’s dope in “Cruel Intentions,” “The Way of the Gun” and “MacGruber”), but his Yorke comes across like a non-playable character saddled with lame dialogue (courtesy of first-time feature screenwriter Jamie Russell working from a story by Nunn) doing exposition dumps. Khoury, who gave the best performance in the three “Twilight” movies I saw this side of Billy Burke, brings much of the same warmth and decency to these proceedings that she brought there.
Nunn and Russell deserve credit for not making all of these terrorists brown people. They also show empathy in depicting the very human reasons why someone would turn to a life of extremism.
Cinematographer Jonathan Iles (“Green Street 3”) and Adkins’ right-hand men, fight choreographer Tim Man and stunt coordinator Dan Styles, also deserve props for making this shtick kick, but when you’re as good as Adkins, tricks are ultimately unnecessary.