WAR MACHINE : Tuesday 24th February 2026

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'WAR MACHINE' at my local multiplex earlier this week, and this Australian and US Co-Produced Sci-Fi action thriller is Co-Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Patrick Hughes whose previous feature films efforts take in his debut with 'Red Hill' in 2010, which he would follow up with 'The Expendables 3' in 2014, 'The Hitman's Bodyguard' in 2017, 'The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard' in 2021 and 'The Man from Toronto' in 2022. This film was released two weeks ago in Australia before streaming on Netflix from 6th March onward, and has so far grossed US$29K.

The film opens up on the outskirts of Kandahar, Afghanistan where a small platoon of soldiers arrive in their Humvee's and armoured vehicles. The soldiers all exit their vehicles and a nameless combat engineer (Alan Ritchson) saunters up to his younger brother (Jai Courtney) who is under the bonnet on another vehicle with a can of 'Stop Leak' trying to fix it with a colleague. The pair embrace after some playful banter, and one of other soldiers asks if the pair know each other. We're brothers comments one,  as seen by the matching tattoo's running down their arms 'DFQ' in a rectangular box outline - standing for 'Don't Fucken Quit'. The younger brother then comments that the pair should be out there on the front lines rather than nurse maiding the locals, and how about they join the Ranger Assessment and Selection Programme (RASP) with a chance to gain entry into the 75th Ranger Regiment, as they talked about when they were younger. The older brother says that those days are gone and he's too old for that, but then he reluctantly agrees. As he turns away, the Taliban strike them hard with rapid mortar fire, destroying a number of vehicles and killing just about all the platoon. The older brother has a large shard of shrapnel embedded in his leg, which he pulls out, gets to his feet and surveys the carnage all around. He finds his brother still barely alive, lifts him up over his shoulder and limps away. 

Fast forward two years, and the older brother is on a bus with a whole bunch of other hopefuls making his way through the Colorado wilderness to the RASP training camp. Upon entry, all recruits are assigned a number by which they'll be recognised, his is #81, and they are told that throughout their eight week rigorous training programme they will be subjected to physical, mental and emotional hardship, and only the strongest of the two hundred or so hopefuls will make it through to the final test of their abilities - The Death March. And so what follows is a montage of each of those eight weeks of training as the recruits are put through their paces, and we see the mud, blood, sweat, tears, orders barked through a loud hailer and the sheer exhaustion etched on the face of the ever dwindling number of recruits as week on week many are rejected and are sent packing. 

In the final week of training the recruits left are given an exercise to carry two heavy dumb bells underwater in a swimming pool for as far as they can walk and hold their breath. All of the other recruits succumb fairly early on and rise to the surface gasping for air. Not #81, however. He continues but blacks out having had a recurring vision of him carrying his dying brother through the desert in Afghanistan. He is yanked out of the pool unconscious, but is revived. This results in him being hauled in front of the Camp Commanding Officer Major Sheridan (Dennis Quaid) and Army Officer Torres (Esai Morales), who both tell him that despite his impressive history of service he is a potential liability, and quite frankly is too old to be leading a crack team of Rangers potentially. Sheridan gives him a pre-written letter of voluntary discharge, and asks him to sign his release paper. #81 stands up and says that he just want's to get across the finish line after the Death March, to which Torres responds that 'it's not the finish line, it's the starting line'. #81 responds with that he's going to join his other recruits on parade.

And so ten or so recruits make it through to the final test of strength, stamina, strategy and support for one another - The Death March. Given their orders they have 24 hours to make it back and #81 is assigned team leader, before being choppered in on two Blackhawk helicopters. A few hours after they are dropped off, they rest up for 20 minutes. During their resting they are startled by a sudden eruption of sound and blinding light travelling at great speed along a river, before all trace of the disruption is gone. Continuing their mission they soon come across the possible cause of the commotion. What appears to be some sort of huge metallic like structure lies half buried in the river bed. Thinking that it is some new Army tech, that the enemy Cadre have planted there as part of their mission, they decide to blow a hole into it using explosives to gain entry. Retreating to a safe distance they detonate but when the smoke clears there is not even a scratch on the surface. At which point the heavily armoured, mechanised and standing upright the towering machine unleashes all hell on the recruits, at first scanning the area for signs of life and then delivering with pin point accuracy a hail of high tech bullets, fire and bombs.

What follows is a mission to survive this marauding monster killing machine, as a number of recruits are taken out, or die when falling end over end down a steep cliff face or attempting to traverse a fast flowing river, or driving through a steep rocky valley while being chased down by said machine that is hell bent on taking out every last one of them. In the end it is #81 who saves the day at a mine site using a giant bulldozer and several sticks of dynamite to thwart the machine once and for all, and he does so successfully . . . of course! 

Walking back to camp carrying another recruit #7 (Stephan James) who suffered a compound fracture to his leg he slumps down at the finish line, but the 24 hour period has since long lapsed. He is greeted by Sheridan and Torres who explain that they lost 75% of their men in an attack by these machines and that they have appeared the world over destroying everything and everyone in their wake. Sheridan asks #81 if he can shed any light on how to overcome these machines, to which he responds in the affirmative saying that if you block off the top of the machine with rocks or sand for example, just as he did at the mine site, then this causes them to over heat dramatically, and ultimately explode. Sheridan says that he may just have saved the planet. 

#81 is seen then giving a pep talk to a team of Rangers to motivate them as they go into battle to save Earth, before joining them aboard a Blackhawk helicopter, and promptly falling asleep as the pilot asks the other Rangers if anyone knows his name.

With 'War Machine' Writer and Director Patrick Hughes hardly reinvents the wheel here, but he does lean heavily into the macho all guns blazing man versus otherworldly being movies that trademarked the late 1980's and early 90's, and in particular I'm thinking the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner 'Predator' here. Alan Ritchson plays the stoic no-nonsense by the book DFQ wannabe Ranger with a sense of realism and believability, and the action sequences are staged in real terrain to add to the authenticity of the scenes being played out. This is not an original film by any stretch, but it does offer the viewer 107 minutes of blood, sweat, tears, explosions and high octane action to warrant your consideration, if this kind of movie floats your boat. and is polished enough to satisfy the harshest critic in this era of green screen technological wizardry that seems to bombard our screens all too frequently these days. 

'War Machine' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-