Valiant One Review: Afraid to Address Difficult Themes
Theatrical Movie Review - War Movie/Drama
War movies can be beneficial for those of us who haven't served in the military to gain a better understanding of what service looks like. They can give a sense of the fear and danger that service members experience in the field. Valiant One by director Steve Barnett attempts to provide that perspective but falls short of giving something more compelling.
Non-combat soldiers Sgt. Brockman (Chase Stokes) and Selby (Lana Condor) are sent with Josh (Desmin Borges) to repair some surveillance tech at the border of North Korea. When a storm approaches rapidly, they are called back to their base, but while en route, the monsoon causes their helicopter to crash. When it is clear that their commanding officer, Chris (Callan Mulvey), is not going to survive the accident, he puts Brockman in charge of getting the troops back to base safely. As they make the trip, they will encounter people and scenarios that will force them to find heroism inside of them that they didn’t know they had.
There are parts of Valiant One that work well. The gathering of the team is well done, as it shows very quickly and efficiently how each member is approaching both the job right in front of them and also how they’re looking at their service as a whole. But while this movie touches on some themes that could elevate it beyond a simple recruitment video from the US military, it refuses to engage with those ideas beyond a passing nod.
The performances in this are solid. Stokes does a good job of portraying a kid who joined up simply because he didn’t have any options in his hometown, and Condor provides a thoughtful juxtaposition to that point. Borges acts as a kind of moral guide through a portion of the film, offering a voice of reason to the movie.
In addition to the performances, the direction looks decent. Barnett has been a producer on a number of films, and his work in this reflects other work he’s done. The action looks good, and if that’s all you want from a movie, it will probably be enough to sate your appetite. Unfortunately, beyond the most simplistic platitudes, the script is unlikely to draw in any but the most pro-military viewers.
In one scene, the team encounters a North Korean farmer and his family when they are trying to make their way back to the base. Both the farmer and Brockman are pointing their guns at each other, yelling, but unable to understand what the other is saying. The tensions are high until Josh exclaims that if the farmer wanted them dead, he would have shot already and that they were all just afraid and wanted to protect the people close to them. I thought that was going to be a turning point in the film when our soldiers could see the enemy as people. Valiant One ultimately chose another path, which is a shame and makes it feel far less valiant.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on February 2, 2025.