Film Review: Renny Harlin’s ‘5 Days of War’ Succumbs to Action Clichés

Submitted by mattmovieman on September 2, 2011 - 6:32am

CHICAGO – “5 Days of War” is a stark reminder of the atrocities that can occur when a B-movie director tries to tackle serious material. The Russo-Georgian War of 2008 was largely ignored by the U.S. government and media, so it was only a matter of time until filmmakers attempted to raise belated awareness about the devastation. Too bad director Renny Harlin is skilled solely in the art of action-packed kitsch.

Rating: 1.5/5.0

This is the sort of low-budget imitation of a Michael Bay-sized blockbuster that would seem to have been destined for a direct-to-video release. Harlin went through the trouble of shooting the film in actual Georgian locations, but his approach to the material is so simple-minded that it causes the audience to become completely detached. It doesn’t matter how authentic the locales are if the audience can’t believe what’s happening in front of them. Some of the animated fire and smoke are so poorly superimposed that they look as if they were stolen from “Birdemic.”

Read Matt Fagerholm’s full review of “5 Days of War” in our reviews section.

Yet the real problem with “War” is its utterly forgettable characters. There isn’t a person on the screen that doesn’t appear to be a hybrid of archetypes recycled from other mediocre pictures. Though the film opens with a dedication card to the “500 war reporters killed in the last decade,” it doesn’t seem like the filmmakers put forth any effort into attempting to portray the psyche of reporters who would actually take such life-or-death risks in capturing a vital story. The hero of the piece is American journalist Thomas (Rupert Friend), a Loose Cannon Who Has Trouble Relating To People. He’s joined by cameraman Sebastian (Richard Couple), a Portly Food-Addict With a Heart O’ Gold, and Tatia (Emmanuelle Chriqui), an Exotic & Emotionally Damaged Hottie. They are each so tidily developed that the entirety of their personality could fit snugly on a 3 by 5 index card. I didn’t believe them as people for an instant, thus causing the entire production to nosedive past the point of no return. Perhaps Harlin made a conscious decision to utilize these mainstream caricatures in order to reach a wider audience, though that decision backfired once the film was relegated to art houses, and I doubt that it will find much of a following on DVD or On Demand. I can’t imagine this film pleasing anyone, let alone the Georgian extras whose reenactments of their nation’s recent tragedies are treated as background fodder.

‘5 Days of War’ stars Rupert Friend, Richard Coyle, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Johnathon Schaech, Rade Serbedzija, Andy Garcia and Val Kilmer. It was written by Mikko Alanne and directed by Renny Harlin. It opens Sept. 2 at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema. It is rated R.

Continue reading for Matt Fagerholm’s full “5 Days of War” review.