The nerve.
It’s been five years, and Jack Cinder still can’t fathom that two of his best killers would just pack up and leave.
First rule of Shadow Force? You don’t leave Shadow Force. Second rule of Shadow Force? You really, really don’t leave Shadow Force.
And why would they? Shadow Force offers so much! Travel! Guns! Insane work hours! And talk about job security! You’ll be guaranteed steady employment until the day you die. Sure, death might come quicker for Shadow Force operatives than, say, Christian movie reviewers. But old age is overrated—especially if you don’t have anyone to grow old with. And in Shadow Force, long-term attachments are frowned upon.
But even with all that Shadow Force offers, assassins Kyrah Owens and Isaac Sarr had the audacity to fall in love. And then, just like that, they left Shadow Force in a huff: No letter of resignation, no two weeks notice, nothing.
Did they leave a forwarding address, just in case Cinder wanted to send a card? Flowers? Or perhaps a team of assassins? They did not. For five years, Cinder’s been searching, hoping to express his extreme displeasure with their departure. The only sign they’re still alive is that, every now and then, one of Cinder’s operatives winds up dead.
The temerity. Not only do you leave, but you usher a few coworkers out the door, too? In body bags?
Jerks.
But finally, Cinder has a lead.
The internet teems with grainy security footage from a would-be bank robbery. The whole attack was foiled by someone who looks like just your average dude.
But Cinder knows that this defender-of-banks is no average dude. Only a Shadow Force operative could dispatch bank robbers with that level of efficiency, armed with only a pair of hearing aids. It must be Isaac Sarr. And if Isaac’s still kicking around, perhaps Kyrah’s close by, too.
And look at that! The guy in the grainy video appears to be a dad! He has a kid with him, just about 5 years old.
That might explain Kyrah and Isaac’s sudden departure, mightn’t it? Nothing scrambles a person’s priorities more than a preschooler.
Or so Cinder has heard, anyway. But no matter: Can’t have people walking off the job and having babies. It’s time to formally terminate these wayward parents. Terminally.
Cinder may not think much of love and parenthood, but Plugged In thinks both are just dandy. We’ll praise Kyrah and Isaac’s priority shift (at least in general terms). And both have done their best to keep their son, Ky, safe. While we’d discourage most parents from engaging in quite the same level of killing, we’ll address that concern more in a later section.
Cinder describes the purpose of Shadow Force is to do “God’s dirty work around the globe.” That is, to kill people that Cinder (on behalf of the U.S. Government, I think—the connections in this film can be a little hazy) thought needed killing.
Someone wears a cross necklace. Someone else stands outside a church (an image of Christ on the cross figures predominantly), with several dead bodies at his feet. A would-be bank thief wears a devil’s mask.
Though married, Kyrah and Isaac have lived apart for several years. (Kyrah feels like she needs to be on the road a lot to kill Shadow Force members before they come after her family.) And their reconnection involves, at first, a lot of hitting and kicking and throwing. But they clearly still love each other, and the two smooch passionately a time or two.
Kyrah also confesses that she had a “thing” with Cinder long before she met Isaac. She feels that she and Cinder’s shared past is a big reason why Cinder is so doggedly determined to kill her and Isaac. And in one scene, Kyrah embraces Cinder as part of a ruse—hoping to prove to her former boss that she’d be interested in rekindling their relationship.
Little Ky asks his father, Isaac, about the old Commodore song “Brick House,” specifically what the numbers 36-24-36 mean. Isaac initially lies, but he then tells Ky that it’s describing a beautiful and voluptuous woman. The outcome of that conversation? From then on, “Brick House” is referred to as the “boobies and booty song” by Ky.
Kyrah wears a formfitting top that reveals some cleavage. Isaac occasionally is seen shirtless. Dancers at a club dress a bit provocatively. Someone talks about dogs and cats having sex.
Domestic abuse is a serious, terrible crime. So Shadow Force feels a bit tone deaf when the script has Kyrah and Isaac beat each other up.
The scene is meant to be funny, I guess. “Look at these two married assassins kick and choke each other! Ha!” we’re meant to say, and the scene is punctuated by Ky coming into the room, looking at the stranger in the living room (Kyrah’s been gone for most of Ky’s life) and saying, “Why are you fighting with my daddy?” But given that both Kyrah and Isaac know perfectly well who the other is—and given how many countless children have watched one parent punch another in a tragic real-life moment—it made me want to hand Kyrah and Isaac the number of a good marriage counselor.
People die here, as you’d imagine. Someone gets skewered in the neck with a knife, another is shot in the head (complete with a splash of blood). A barbecue grill blows up, presumably killing the person standing next to it. A character is shot a ludicrous number of times—though the first few bullets seem to do less harm than a typical horsefly. (A lot of blood still stains the victim’s shirt, however.)
In the opening scene, Isaac kills all the bank robbers (one of whom threatened to shoot Ky in the face). We don’t see much of the confrontation itself (because, really, why would you show action in an action movie?), but we do see several bodies strewn about on the floor, as well as grainy security-camera footage of the melee afterward. Other people also die via gun and machete, though blood is surprisingly minimal.
A woman is subdued by a frenetic beating. Cinder beats up his two bodyguards (for some reason). They all throw punches, and they all wind up with blood on their faces. Someone performs a sleeper hold on someone else. A car crashes and tumbles into a lake. Boats collide. Kyrah tries to fight off a phalanx of flare-throwing motorcycle riders with a car-mounted machine gun. Someone—perhaps recalling some past bakery-related snub—guns down a wedding cake.
A semi-truck crashes and the cab explodes, indicating that a couple barrels of gas were riding shotgun.
About 45 f-words (at least one of which is uttered by 5-year-old Ky) and, oh, let’s call it 15 s-words. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused three times, while Jesus’ name is abused once.
Cinder drinks a lot—perhaps trying to numb the pain from being in this movie. (I doubt that it worked.) He asks for a double glass of whiskey sometime before breakfast—then amends that, asking for a triple instead. When he downs that, he tells his disapproving alcohol server to refill the glass “as fast as humanly possible.”
Cinder holds a dinner with his Shadow Force associates, where champagne and wine are served. He offers an old friend a glass of Hennessy XO cognac as a prelude to an interrogation, drinking some as well. He crashes a wedding party (scaring the actual partiers away), and he helps himself to leftover champagne.
Isaac drinks a glass of wine. Auntie and Unc—two old friends of Kylah and Isaac—drink at a nightclub. Auntie scolds Unc for drinking. But when they learn something valuable, Auntie says, “I’ll drink to that,” which Unc amends to, “I’m getting drunk to that.”
As a boss, Cinder is an HR nightmare. In fact, he’s nicer to the people he wants to kill. He insults and berates his household staff and bodyguards. Somehow, he’s become the secretary general of the G7 (a group of the world’s seven wealthiest countries), and he rips into national representatives, too. (It feels as though more vetting should’ve been done in the G7’s application process.)
An act of betrayal takes Kyrah and Isaac by surprise, even though the audience can see it well ahead of time.
Movies, even problematic movies, can offer thoughtful, powerful bits of storytelling. And when films show a great deal of care in their craftsmanship, I try to take care to give those films a certain level of thought. My conclusions can sometimes be counted in chapters if the movie warrants it—even if it warrants it in a bad way.
So with that in mind, here’s my summation of Shadow Force.
It’s bad.
(Pause.)
What, you want more? OK. More it is.
Shadow Force is bad in your typical Plugged In ways, of course. It’s not as bloody as many an R-rated actioner, but it’s still bloody enough to warrant its R-rating. And to see a husband and wife literally fighting in front of their child feels like it lands in the realm of not just bad content, but bad taste.
Shadow Force’s language is likewise quite harsh, with its makers trying to generate cheap laughs by having a 5-year-old do a good chunk of the swearing. Alcohol is an issue, too. And none of it had to be so: This movie could’ve functioned equally as well as a PG-13 actioner with just a little more restraint.
But “function” here is a loose term. And even if it was PG-13, it offers no compelling reason to watch—other than as a potential exercise in irony. As far as I can see, there’s only one job that might be worse than being an eternal member of Shadow Force: It would be the job of watching this movie eight hours a day for—well, a day. Anything more would surely violate some sort of by-laws of the Geneva Convention.
The best thing about this movie is that it gives Lionel Ritchie’s music some well-deserved praise. Truly. But outside of that, you might be advised to sail on.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
