One More Shot

One-More-Shot
One More Shot

So Scott Adkins has started another franchise. ONE MORE SHOT is the sequel to ONE SHOT, which is this siege thriller by James Nunn that came out back in 2021 and is styled as a ROPE. The first film is impressive as it has very convincing drama and acting and not just well-placed camera angles and action choreography. Many of the fans ranked it within the top Adkin movies, but it’s the kind of movie where he mostly shoots guns and there is no flying kick, so I was not prepared to be a party to that. It does tend to have that War On Terror feeling, which I wasn’t too hyped about. Still, it’s decent.

For the sequel, Adkins, Nunn, and co-writer Jamie Russell join forces again, and this time, the film eliminates the issues that I previously expressed complaints about, and is automatically a bigger and more interesting action movie anyway. While the first was located at a CIA black site which has been the location for more military action films than the number of beaches in the world since the George W. Bush presidency, this one is centered around an abandoned airport.

Navy SEAL Jake Harris (Adkins) comes in with his detainee, Amin Mansur (Waleed Elgadi, FOUR LIONS) who is the only one who knows where the dirty bomb is planted which is set to explode during a State of the Union meeting of the US placed somewhere in Washington DC. Various disputes mean they are unable to fly him into a military air force base, and instead engineer a fictional gas leak to clear out a civilian one. In my opinion, the script warrants it, but then again, even if it didn’t, it’s a much more interesting location than a military base somehow, they filmed it at London Stansted Airport.

Upon Harris’s arrival, he is quickly whisked away by Michael Marshall (Tom Berenger, THE SUBSTITUTE) of the CIA, Homelands Security’s Agent Lomax (Alexis Knapp, PITCH PERFECT), and others, who can also be seen attempting to persuade Mansur’s separated and pregnant wife Niesha (Meena Rayann, Warrior Nun). For Harris, being with the prisoner is everything he has worked for, but he is quickly ignored and instead, goes off to receive a call from his distressed spouse (Jill Winternitz, “Pan Am Stewardess”, INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY). In essence, for those who have had the unpleasant experience of being delayed at an airport en route to their destination, an empty terminal does put things into perspective about how beat down he is right now when it comes to his level of fatigue.

Harris’ confusion due to the presence of armed soldiers is cut short when he is asked whether he has seen any armed soldiers in the terminal. Before the chaos subsides, his focus is solely on maintaining the safety of the Mansurs in custody while attempting to identify the aggressors and their goals.

Harris may regret hearing this and probably the fans too, but it’s a bunch of badass mercenaries led by Michael Jai White’s Jackson. He’s portrayed within the narrative as a really intimidating bad guy; his subordinates seem to have fear of him long before we meet him and when we eventually do, at times the camera is positioned in such a way as if we are peeking around a corner while he issues orders with a psychotic Deebo stare. He is in charge but he has no time for his cold-hearted lead muscle Dunbar (Aaron Toney, WOLF WARRIOR II, DEBT COLLECTORS) and Campbell (Edward Linard, Never Back Down Revolt), who he immediately dispatches to locate Harris and the Mansurs.

Yes, a fair amount of very interesting McClaning is there poking around the corners and trying hard to remain undetected, getting sniper rifles and body armor off the enemies he eliminates. At times the camera may shift to focus on other characters and, off-screen, Harris would be shooting them, or he would have ambushed someone from behind to crank their neck. There’s lots of shooting again, but plenty of close-distance combat with punches, blades, and even hacks and stomps. Thank you, ONE MORE SHOT, I appreciate you.

It’s not a never-ending fight, but it’s worth staying interested. There’s a build-up about the bad guys’ actions and whom Harris can depend on. One particular actor gets the chance to shift from goodness to being a complete jerk and has fun in the process.

In this genre, Mansur is rather a complicated character, a man who genuinely planned to commit a terror attack because of revenge after a drone strike led to the death of his child, but weirdly seems to have been a victim of circumstance, might actually be convinced to prevent it, and clearly hates being the scapegoat for someone else. His wife Niesha is also a complex character as she hasn’t yet forgiven him for his actions but still loves him and, after a moment’s pause, believes she might be able to reach him.

I do not know if they did this on purpose but it is nice that there are some DIE HARD 2 references in this part 2. One of them is that the one main tough guy in an airport is running around fighting many, but also, at the same time, everyone is alert about a foreign threat when it is actually the American military officers who are behind it all. Of course, the budget is minute in comparison to what Renny Harlin had (that’s life), so they don’t get to have jets exploding or anything. I was looking forward to some amusing moments with luggage conveyor belts, but as things stand, these moments were apparently not in the cards, and may not make sense in an abandoned airport. Still, there is a fight on a tram, and if it is in fact not really moving then boy did they manage to make it look as though it was going really fast. I am clearly a fan of NINJA’s fish fighting subway scene that I’m sure was done using a greenscreen, but this one had the edge of realism which gets my heart beating rapidly.

As with everything, there are parts that are quite funny. His passing through a room with a television turned on where a news anchor declares the date of the State of the Union and that the President, Vice President, and Congress will be performing was quite funny. It is evident for our overseas friends, but it still cracks me up. In any case, this is in a league of its own in terms of most VOD action, which is a high-level work of filmmaking craft and budget on other levels. I have not mentioned that it follows the contrived-fake-oner of the first installment simply because I didn’t feel it while viewing it. Well, it is only one long take, but in terms of the hidden cuts being quite overused, in many instances, the ones taken are unsettling. Was this sort of system missing even when it was pretty much expected? The only instance when I did, I think, was after a fall stunt which probably was tricksy in some way, then again, even that was no big deal for me.

I think it’s a very effective approach for this perceiving as to how CHILDREN OF MEN manages to convey that feeling of chaos one feels when one is caught in a war zone which in this case is especially done well when the character is in a moving vehicle getting shot at to engender a real sense of urgency by telling this particular story in real time.

And of course one of the selling points is seeing Adkins and White face each other again. They did so in ACCIDENT MAN (2018) and TRIPLE THREAT (2019) but I personally go as far as to recall 2006’s UNDISPUTED II LAST MAN STANDING, the breakout role for Adkins, and also a great achievement for White and for DTV action in general. And yes they do get to fight, but it would be unfair to build it up as the promised Boyka vs. Iceman rematch it’s a different type of movie, a different type of fight, and they are almost 20 years older.

It is a great scene though and there is enough rationale in every character while approaching the scene. Jackson is cocky and full of himself, walking and shouting around. This is because up until this time, he has been sitting in the back barking orders to his minions. Harris has been going through the most throughout the movies with a long flight being his only break so he is exhausted and almost about to drop due to smartness does not answer Jackson and saves his voice and attention. The fight choreographer is Tim Man, who came from NINJA: SHADOW OF A TEAR and has been in several movies with Adkins ever since.

Their fight is called a truce but the way it was set up beforehand the ending fight was bound to be short. There is an eerie feeling of witnessing Harris come close to the edge of killing him, not because he wants to but because he needs to move on. It is an intriguing aspect namely the fact that only after the movie did I think about how he left Jackson intact so that he could be in the sequel that they would want to make. Fingers crossed, I hope they are, there is an interesting standoff in that moment, but it seems odd to phrase it that way when the whole thing is a sequence of fights, with Ogami and Retsudo burying their swords in an ongoing brawl.

For many people that is gonna be a complaint, to be precise as it rather ends on a cliffhanger. Focusing on and quite finishing one task only to have an even greater and pressing matter to deal with. Again it most certainly does feel like a middle chapter amongst a triad that in the realm of indie action franchises we are uncertain if there will even be a 3rd part. but in my opinion, it is very effective as it sounds absolutely bizarre. Finally, the movie achieves something a bomb being attempted to be detonated, as its focus shifts to a strong and quite intricately crafted character.

ONE MORE SHOT is currently available on VOD in the US as well as on Sky Cinema in the UK. I suggest beginning with ONE SHOT, as it is worthwhile and this film builds on it, but if for some reason you want to go straight to this one, I believe you will grasp what the movie is about.

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