Dead Shot

August 18th, 2023

MOVIE: DEAD SHOT

STARRING: COLIN MORGAN, AML AMEEN, MARK STRONG, FELICITY JONES

DIRECTED BY: CHARLES GUARD, THOMAS GUARD

AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 2 STARS (Out of 4)

There are many times when the marketing of a movie can be its downfall. Dead Shot is not at all the movie it has advertised as. Looking at the poster you would think it is a spy thriller, about a group of assassins like The Kingsmen, or a powerful hitting heist movie like The Channel. This one is actually about revolution, the British versus the IRA (Irish Revolution Army), and a story about how revenge never can give us the solace we seek. Dead Shot is an engaging story but gives little backstory to understand why we should care in the first place.

The story opens with Michael O’Hara (Colin Morgan) and his pregnant wife Carol (Máiréad Tyers), living in a small cottage where they hide out, waiting to get word from the IRA on their next move. What is inevitable is that British troops are making their way through the woods and when Michael receives word the two get in the car to escape, but the baby has different plans, and when Carol starts to go into labor, Michael leaves to get help, only to witness a British officer that mistakes her presence as a threat, accidentally shooting her. From there O’Hara goes on the run, hoping one day to get his revenge, both for his countrymen and for the women he loved.

On the other side of the event is the officer Tempest (Aml Ameen), a soldier who is a part of this war, and now must deal with the trauma of his actions. Instead of being charged with murder or discharged, he’s recruited into an MI6 program, his identity erased, and used by leader Holland (played by an always-present Mark Strong) for hunting O’Hara and the rest of his Freedom fighters. The narrative balances between Tempest struggling with his new role, while O’Hara plans attacks on British soil, with the help of a journalist just known as Catherine (Felicity Jones in a thankless role).

Narratively speaking, there is enough intrigue for a captivating story, which is written and directed by brothers Charles and Thomas Guard. It’s based on the book The Road to Balcombe Street, written by Steven P. Moysey, which may have further details and a richer history to understand the violence at the time. Sadly, the Guard brothers fail to intrigue the audience when needed. Backroom conversations lack exact details, with characters coming and going without an explanation for their purpose, and when there is action it involves chase sequences that are dull. While the concepts of revenge work just enough to keep a narrative flow, Dead Shot plays like a less exciting companion piece to the 1997 Brad Pitt-Harrison Ford drama The Devil’s Own.

It’s not that there isn’t something there, where the film builds to an eventual meeting of Tempest and O’Hara, where the moment of revenge arrives in a poetic fashion. Sadly, it lacks the courage to give the audience an ending to shock or fulfill us the way The Count of Monte Cristo would, but instead does the way a two-star movie tends to disappoint. Dead Shot may have been a better movie if I knew more of the details and history. Instead, it is a movie that looks like a lot of action and ends up being all talk.

DEAD SHOT IS CURRENTLY PLAYING IN SELECT THEATERS, ON DIGITAL, AND ON DEMAND RIGHT NOW.

2 STARS

Written by: Leo Brady
leo@amovieguy.com