Now playing limited release
Cast:
Jonas Ball as Benjamin Keynes
Matthew R. Anderson as Chief Warrant Officer Wally Hamer
Jon Huertas as Sgt. Vincent Degetau
Michael C. Williams as Sgt. Trinoski
Sam Hunter as Sgt. Tim Cole
Jeff Prewett as Sgt. Pete Sadler
Kenny Taylor as MSgt. Tanner
Chems-Eddine Zinoune as Abdul
Directed by Daniel Myrick
Review:
It’s a little staggering to realize that this year marks the tenth anniversary of The Blair Witch Project. An unrivaled horror phenomenon that sparked divisive reactions among fans and critics, the out-of-nowhere success of Blair Witch posed the question of whether its co-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez were brilliant new talents or one-hit wonders. Ten years later, I don’t know if it’s fair to say that a definitive answer to that question has been reached, but it would be fair to say that Blair Witch has proved to be a very tough act to follow.
After an extended hiatus from filmmaking, both Myrick and Sanchez have begun separate directing careers with moderate results. I enjoyed Sanchez’s return to the director’s chair with the 2006 alien abduction tale Altered and early word on his latest film, Seventh Moon (2008), has been mixed-to-positive. Myrick’s post-Blair Witch projects, on the other hand, are largely unfamiliar to me. He’s been just slightly more prolific than Sanchez, helming the DTV thrillers Believers (released through Warner Bros. Raw Feed label), Solstice, and his latest film The Objective, but until now I hadn’t seen any of his efforts.
The main thing that struck me about The Objective was how much it echoed Blair Witch. Whether that was an unconscious move on Myrick’s part (given the obvious similarities between the two films, I’d say that’s improbable), a purposely commercial bid, or an artistic interest in revisiting old ground from a new angle, The Objective is clearly indebted to Blair Witch. Unfortunately, noting the similarities between the two films is a much-needed mental diversion during what proves to be a less than gripping experience.
The setting, at least, initially promises a slightly different sort of horror film. Taking place in Afghanistan in November 2001, Myrick’s tale puts CIA agent Ben Keynes (Jonas Ball) on a top secret mission into the desert teamed with a special ops military unit well-stocked with hardcore types assigned to assist Keynes in what is ostensibly a search for a lead on WMDs but in actuality is a search for a unexplained radiation silhouette detected by spy satellites. Keynes is playing the truth of his assignment close to the vest, however, and this trek through the arduous environment of the Afghanistan desert is not going to be a growth experience for anyone involved.
In many ways, this might be best described as being Aliens to Blair Witch‘s Alien. As opposed to a small band of regular folk heading out into strange territory, finding that they lack proper supplies and resources, and ultimately unraveling against a mysterious threat that they can never confront, in The Objective there’s a larger unit of professional soldiers equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and weapons that head out into similarly strange territory. The men of The Objective may be trudging through the desert rather than through the woods but like the trio of documentary filmmakers in Blair Witch, the soldiers of The Objective find themselves being bested by their surroundings and bedeviled by a presence that stalks them, takes them one-by-one, but never fully reveals itself.
As in Blair Witch, the men of The Objective discover too late that their environment has stopped obeying the laws of physics, and that refuge or rescue is an impossibility. Even containers filled with water are suddenly, inexplicably, filled with sand. And Keynes is clearly the Heather Donahue of the group, documenting their journey even past the point when it’s clear that their mission has turned disastrous. The worse their ordeal becomes, the more confounding their circumstances, the more tensions flare within the group (as in Blair Witch) and the more the duty-sworn Keynes is pressed to produce some honest answers.
This all may sound like the makings of a tense thriller, but The Objective is deadly dull â as dry as the desert its protagonists march through. Ball’s character is interesting in that he’s so blindly devoted to his mission (much like Heather’s unwavering commitment to pushing on with her documentary in Blair Witch), that he takes the sacrifices of the unit accompanying him for granted. But that trait doesn’t make him a sympathetic lead and, unlike Heather, he never comes to that private moment of regret that humanizes him. Much more likeable is Matt Anderson as the gruff leader of the squad. Outside of Anderson, though, and the squad’s local guide (Zindune Chems Eddine) none of the soldiers stand out (including Blair Witch cast member Michael C. Williams as Sgt. Trinoski). This is a movie where it might’ve been wise to play into the familiar convention of war movies where each squad member is readily identifiable through some distinctive personal trait (like one has a penchant for practical jokes, one has a encyclopedic knowledge of movie trivia, etc.). It’s a shorthand way of supplying characterization but as is, all the performances here are decent but none resonate.
Also lacking any dramatic interest here is the unknown â and assumedly extraterrestrial â force that the squad has to contend with. There are unexplained lights that appear in the sky and some characters find themselves instantly vaporized but there isn’t the creepy accumulation of incidents and forewarnings that helped give Blair Witch its potency. As it turns out, piles of rocks are scarier to behold than lights in the sky. Or maybe it’s just that there isn’t the sense that these characters are being taunted, hunted, and led deeper into darkness. Myrick may have been out to make an intelligent, understated thriller that didn’t trade in on cheap scares or special effects but that laudable goal proves to be an elusive Objective.
