The Hornet's Nest

At its core I love what this doccie does: it presents some front line perspectives of American soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. That in itself is impressive and at times harrowing.

But then the movie wraps itself in a jacket of awful ideas. The soundtrack feels ripped from every reality show made in the past few years. I almost started to expect a host from something like Fear Factor to show up. The storytelling is also very convoluted. It skims details and personalities, briefly introducing them before running to the next plot point.

While it goes out of its way to highlight the sacrifices made by the soldiers, The Hornet's Nest gives little clarity on what is going on half of the time. Other than bring across the intensity of firefights, much more isn't revealed.

But my biggest problems are the cheap narrative tricks. At times moments are made more dramatic than they are, especially if it involves one of the journalists potentially getting shot. This is done twice and both times it's more a trick of editing than what actually happened.

I'd liken this to Ross Kemp's Afghanistan doccies: intense, but vapid and a little bit exploitative. You don't come out of The Hornet's Nest learning much, other than Americans are great soldiers. If that is the point, this succeeds. But it could have done so much more with its material instead of feeling like a made-for-reality-TV special.