In 2017 there was a straight-to-Netflix movie called WAR MACHINE, a satire about the war in Afghanistan. I was interested because it was from director David Michôd (ANIMAL KINGDOM, THE ROVER, later CHRISTY), but I still haven’t gotten around to it because it went straight to Netflix, it didn’t seem like a real movie, and I forgot it existed.
Now there’s a 2026 straight-to-Netflix movie also called WAR MACHINE, but it’s about Reacher (Alan Ritchson) fighting a robot. This one also went straight to Netflix, also doesn’t seem like a real movie, so I threw it on casually. Times change I guess.
It starts in Kandahar. They finally ended the war in Afghanistan, but it lives on in the traumatic-incident-flashbacks that open all military-based action movies. Ritchson (DARK WEB: CICADA 3301) plays an unnamed Staff Sergeant with a background in engineering who comes to fix an engine for a stranded convoy. He confronts the person responsible for the engine troubles, played by Jai Courtney (DANGEROUS ANIMALS), in that move where two characters come at each other like they’re angry but then it’s a joke and they’re old pals, or in this case actual brothers. I’ve been thinking of that trope as “the Lando,” but here it sort of serves as a “Dillon you sonofabitch,” because this movie exists very clearly in the shadow of PREDATOR. (read the rest of this shit…)
21 BRIDGES is a police thriller with some action. It reminds me of the kind of stuff studios made in the ‘90s, when maybe it would’ve starred Denzel or Wesley Snipes or maybe Samuel L. Jackson if he’d been offered it during that window when he could be the main character and starred in 
After 
