Plenty of American military personnel could probably empathize with the situation the Emirati soldiers found themselves in. It is a two-stage ambush, designed to first incapacitate the two-armored vehicle patrol, but its ultimate target is the multi-vehicle rapid response unit that comes to rescue them. Unfortunately, strategic use of land mines and RPGs leave the combined Emirati forces boxed in, where they must take mortar fire, while a sniper keeps them pinned inside their vehicles.
Morel previously helmed Taken and District B13, so he obviously understands how to handle large-scale action sequences. The problem is the script by Brandon and Kurtis Birtell is absolutely colorless. According to press notes, it was written in close-consultation with the survivors of the incident the film is based on. That might be nice for authenticity’s sake, but not for the drama. Typically, in war films like this, each soldier gets their own individual quirks and background details to help distinguish them and allow diverse audience members to identify with them. In this case, everybody’s thing is having a concerned family waiting for them back in UAE, which makes it hard to differentiate anyone, especially when artillery starts exploding around them.
However, Morel depicts the step-by-step escalation of the ambush with crisp precision. If you do not mind sacrificing things like characterization and dialogue, The Ambush is a very impressively produced war movie. I would want to re-watch it before setting off on a desert patrol in a war-torn Gulf state. The tactics and hardware are completely realistic, but the dialogue much less so. Seriously, nobody in the UAE military curses?
