Man of War: A Former SEAL’s Ukrainian Rescue Mission

Remember in the days leading up to Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine when certain pundits assured us he would never do it? Then, once he did it, they blamed the U.S., because we didn’t sufficiently strenuously object to Ukraine joining NATO. Of course, they wanted to join NATO, because they knew Putin wanted to conquer their nation. Michael Connor is pretty cynical when it comes to geopolitics, but he finds himself fighting Russian shock troops to save his [adopted] niece in William Kaufman’s Man of War, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

Connor was deep into a dark night of the soul when Riley (the daughter of a fallen Ukrainian-American comrade) calls with an S.O.S. Sadistic criminal turned-commando Stanismir Koniev keeps the line open just long enough to taunt Connor. Big mistake. Immediately, Connor calls his former CIA handler, Charlie Lewis, who reluctantly arranges his transport into Ukraine with a group of British operators hoping to extract a high-paying oligarch.

Lewis also connects Connor with a fixer, Dany Sundakov, who has done business with both the CIA and the local underworld. In exchange for helping Connor, Lewis arranges an extraction for Sundakov’s family as well. However, Connor’s cynical “war happens” attitude obviously annoys Sundakov, who is quite understandably offended by the constant shelling and bombing of civilian targets in his country. The more he begrudgingly defends women and children from Putin’s Z-thugs, the more Connor sees Sundakov’s point.

You have to give Kaufman credit, because he actually sets his action films in the real world, which gives them much greater stakes, because the audience understands (or at least they should) the kind of brutality the Taliban is capable of in Warhorse One, and likewise that of Putin’s Wagner mercenaries in Man of War.

Both films also boast super-gritty, skillfully executed action sequences (shot on-location at convincingly realistic sites in Bulgaria). In the case of Man of War, the urban warfare is viscerally believable. Of course, it helps that LaMonica Garrett is a highly credible and physically imposing action lead, while martial arts-specialist Daniel Bernhardt makes Koniev a truly slimy and sadistic villain. He is also true to life, because Putin and the late but not great Wagner leader Prigozhin deliberately recruited violent criminals of his caliber for their dirty war.

Jason Patric definitely helps ground the film as Lewis, who happens to be the rarest of unicorns: a sympathetic CIA character. Again, give Kaufman and co-screenwriter Paul Reichelt their due credit. Plus, as Sundakov, Andrew Howard keenly expresses the Ukrainian feelings of outrage, without compromising the film’s action standards.

Admittedly, Man of War is a lean and mean, relatively small-scale genre film, but it absolutely over-achieves. It is also squarely grounded in reality, which allows for considerable cathartic pay-off. It would be great if Kaufman could target CCP China’s genocide of the Uyghurs next, because an awful lot of viewers would enjoy that. Highly recommended for action fans, Man of War releases tomorrow (7/3) on VOD.