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Critics Consensus: Tense, intelligent, and refreshingly low-key, A War is part frontline thriller, part courtroom drama -- and eminently effective in both regards.
Critic Consensus: Tense, intelligent, and refreshingly low-key, A War is part frontline thriller, part courtroom drama -- and eminently effective in both regards.
All Critics (90) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (82) | Rotten (8)
The haunting and stark A War may be [Tobias Lindholm's] most striking and effective work yet
Writer-director Tobias Lindholm's latest is a microcosmic and finely wrought war story in which everyone has their reasons.
Ethically challenging and occasionally brutal, "A War" explores the dicey nature of decisions made in the heat of battle and the grim consequences that may follow.
It's intense without becoming simplistic, and the actors stay focused as the viewpoints shift.
Only in the second half, after the commander is accused of a war crime and returns home to stand trial, do these two worlds merge and their respective realities clash, with sobering results.
[It] may ... be among the best war movies of all time.
While the film fails to plow new ground in the war genre, it's meticulously crafted and wisely interprets pragmatism as a double-edged sword.
In both a very literal and abstract sense, A War represents the universality of the human condition when put under extreme pressure and the lengths one is willing to go to in times of despair.
While this isn't anything groundbreaking or earth-shattering, there are a handful of aspects that make A WAR something to see - so long as you don't go out of your way for it.
An almost invisibly crafted film that manages to be both original and startlingly topical by addressing the highly emotive subject of soldiers being tried in civilian courts for decisions made or acts carried out in the heated chaos of war.
The virtues of A War are also its biggest deficit: a leisureliness and inevitability that drain the effect from what is otherwise a solidly constructed drama.
This is an important film and should be seen.
After a rather clumsy first hour that feels a bit too static and even predictable in its unfolding, this great naturalistic war drama surprisingly grows in its second half to raise intelligent and relevant questions about the kind of ugly decisions a good soldier can make in the line of fire.
Super Reviewer
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