Rod Lurie is an interesting cat … Israeli-born, American-raised, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, an air defense artillery officer in the U.S. Army-turned entertainment reporter and film critic-turned writer/director.
I haven’t seen but have heard good things about Lurie’s 1999 debut “Deterrence,” in which Kevin Pollak played the first Jewish President of the United States. I did see and enjoy his follow-ups 2000’s “The Contender” (for which Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges received Academy Award nominations) and 2001’s “The Last Castle,” which sported an impressive cast featuring Robert Redford, James Gandolfini and Mark Ruffalo.
For whatever reason I missed subsequent efforts “Resurrecting the Champ” (2007) and “Nothing but the Truth” (2008). I did see Lurie’s misguided 2011 remake of Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs.” This was the last feature he made prior to “The Outpost,” which will be available on VOD as of Friday, July 3.
“The Outpost” is based on CNN reporter Jake Tapper’s best-selling non-fiction book “The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor,” which chronicled the Battle of Kamdesh wherein 53 U.S. soldiers fought off somewhere between 300 and 400 Taliban at Combat Outpost Keating in north-eastern Afghanistan on Oct. 3, 2009.
The first half of “The Outpost” chronicles these men’s day-to-day lives – ribbing on one another, burning piss and shit in oil drums, taking random pot shots from insurgents since their base is at the bottom of three steep mountains providing plenty of cover. The second half of the feature focuses almost exclusively on the Battle of Kamdesh and it’s intense as all get-out.
The opening hour doesn’t work as well as the closing hour, but it’s necessary for the ultimate pay-off. Title cards instruct audiences as to who’s who, what’s what, when’s when and where’s where. Things remain kinda confusing as there are a lot of characters and many of them look alike with their crew cuts. The focus ultimately narrows and hones in on Staff Sgt. Clint Romesha (Scott Eastwood) and Staff Sgt. Ty Carter (Caleb Landry Jones), which helps.
The cast of “The Outpost” plays like a nepotism checklist featuring the sons and grandsons of all sorts of famous folk – the aforementioned Eastwood (son of Clint), Milo Gibson (son of Mel), James Jagger (son of Mick), Scott Alda Coffey (grandson of Alan) and Will Attenborough (grandson of Richard). In spite of their famed familial ties, these actors all acquit themselves aptly on their own accord.
Eastwood is an actor I haven’t always been fond of. The dude was so wooden in “Suicide Squad,” “The Fate of the Furious” and “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” he was balsa. My favorite performance of his prior to now was as the romantic lead of director George Tillman Jr.’s Nicholas Sparks adaptation, “The Longest Ride.”
He does the best work of his career as Romesha. It took me a while to acclimate to Eastwood’s mustache (a look the real-life Romesha actually rocked at the time), which made him look like a cross between Clark Gable or Errol Flynn and Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing mimicking Tom Selleck’s Dr. Richard Burke on “Friends.”
In spite of this follicular failure, Eastwood is aces in the role. He sells Romesha’s frustration and heroism easily and does wonders in handling action – I swear to Christ, I must’ve seen this cat personally merc at least 15 to 20 Taliban.
As good as Eastwood and the rest of the cast are, this is unequivocally Jones’ show. Jones is an actor I’ve admired for quite some time. He obnoxiously exemplified privilege in “Get Out” and quietly exuded decency and forgiveness in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” His Carter is an interesting character. He’s an outcast at the outpost. He often talks about his time as a Marine prior to enlisting in the Army, which is a turnoff to his fellow soldiers who mock and ostracize him.
There’s a scene near the end of the film that recalls Tom Hanks’ closing moments in “Captain Phillips,” in which Jones captures PTSD as memorably and emotionally as Hanks did. The physical acting by Jones is really something to behold – he so clearly conveys both fear and courage and runs his fucking ass off. This is the second best performance of the year thus far behind Delroy Lindo in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” … there must be something in the water on the sets of these war pictures.
I’m convinced Lurie is the perfect person to bring this story to the screen due to his time at West Point, his service in the Army and the fact that he recently lost his son, Hunter (to whom the picture is dedicated), an up-and-coming film editor who was the same age as a lot of the men in the movie. These factors allowed Lurie to infuse the proceedings with a deep empathy for these soldiers. “The Outpost” isn’t perfect – Bulgaria substitutes for Afghanistan, it was produced by Millennium Media and sports some shoddy special effects by their Nu Boyana FX studio, the first hour is kinda draggy and confusing – but it is respectful.
After the inaction of our President came to light within the last week, respect for our servicemen and servicewomen is sort of a novel concept. They most assuredly deserve it. Lurie gets that. “The Outpost” gets that.