Army of One is an all out action assault where Ellen Hollman shines as the action star
Director: Stephen Durham
Writer: Mary Ann Barnes, David Dittlinger, Stephen Durham, Ellen Hollman (Screenplay)
Starring: Ellen Hollman, Matt Passmore, Stephen Dunlevy, Barry Hanley, Gary Kasper, Kendra Carelli, Cameron Bowen
Plot: Out hiking, Special Forces Brenner Baker stumbles onto a Cartel’s compound. Her husband’s killed and she’s left for dead. The Cartel made two mistakes, killed her husband and left her alive. They won’t live to make another.
Tagline – They Left Her For Dead, Big Mistake
Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Army of One starts when Brenner (Hollman) and her husband Dillion (Passmore) head away for a camping vacation. Getting over Dillion recent injury on the job. The pair stumble upon a Cartel run by Mama (Singer) whose redneck crew kill Dillion and leave Brenner for dead.
Brenner a special forces soldier isn’t going to let the rednecks get away with murdering her husband and sets out on a bloody rampage against them to bring down their enterprise.
Thoughts on Army of One
Characters
Brenner is a special forces soldier who is on a vacation with her husband. When he is murdered she goes out for revenge. Which will see her using all her skills to take on the people responsible, bringing them down with her military training.
Dillion is Brenner’s husband, who has been through a traumatic experience, leaving him injured. Using his time to recover still caught with nightmares of what happened. Mama runs the organisation that she covers with her friendly diner chef. While behind the scenes she is ruthless leader. We have countless number of redneck figures, each one will see Brenner showing off a different skill to defeat.
Performances – Ellen Hollman in the leading role is great to watch, being the action heroine that makes the film stand out. With the physical performance needed during the fights. Matt Passmore along with the support cast all give us strong performance. Even if some of the redneck figures might not have the strongest death reactions.
Story
The story here follows a special forces soldier that is left for dead. That looks for revenge against the people who killer her husband and she won’t stop until everyone pays.
This might well be a story we have seen many times before. Which works keeping everything simple in the strategic attacks planned by Brenner. The one weaker side to the story does come from the cartel group. It is late before we learn what they are involved in and when it comes to the locals. It leaves little to the imagination to who to trust.
Action – The action is the highlight in the film, with fights Brenner gets involved in trying to get her own revenge. Each fight will put her through a different experience and set of fighting skills, with a wonderful one-shot moment too.
Settings – The film is set mostly in an off the grid compound where the operations take place, you can see how secure the people think it will be until they come under attack.
Scene of the Movie – The escape one-shot fight.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The randomness of seeing Dillion’s flashbacks.
Prior to my being aware of this film — and for the sake of scratching another David A. Prior flick off this list — I reviewed the Leliani Sarelle-starring Relentless Justice (2014). Army of One seems quite similar, though that’s pure coincidence, I’m sure. Eric Roberts is in that one (briefly), if you’re into scratching another of his 600-plus films off the list.
Thanks for the review. I’ve seen Army of One popping on the streaming platforms and needed to know what was up.
The producers made two mistakes. One, they got up in the morning and two, they made this film. With a better writer and director it could have been really good but for the heroine to not pick up weapons when she had the chance and simply run away when being fired upon was very lame.
Failed to utilize weapons when available and failed to kill the park ranger and sheriff’s secretary at the end …who were deeply involved!!!
You are so right! This happens so many times in films. The first thing I’d do: pick up the weapons. Just start slingin’ the rifles and bullet belts over the shoulders until you can’t carry anymore. And use those cargo pockets for the pistols!