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One Shot sees a bunch of Navy SEALs including Jake Harris (Scott Adkins), plus CIA bod Zoe Anderson (Ashley Greene Khoury), heading to pick up terrorist Amin Mansur (Waleed Elgadi), who’s being held at a CIA black site, which looks like a makeshift Guantanamo Bay-style place.
It takes almost 20 minutes before something actually happens, as a group of insurgents storm the compound in a truck, take the area by force. As it goes on, everything explodes around them as the camera circles the cast, although obviously the explosions, gunfire, rocket launcher etc are CGI added in post-production. Some people get injured, almost every man has a beard.
Michael Bay-style explosions this does not have… In fact, it’s like watching an early ’90s Medal of Honour game play out.
Although the title references a film that’s shot in one take, as this intends, Zoe explains that Mansur is their one shot to track down a terrorist cell in Europe which is building a dirty bomb.
When it comes to films shot in one take, I can generally tell if there’s any edits to mask where they stopped filming inbetween actual takes. With Birdman, I could tell at least two were in there, while with Victoria, I thought there were a couple, but it WAS actually all done in one question. Similarly, for Lost In London, which wasn’t only shot in one take, but was broadcast LIVE to a cinema at the same time! As for One Shot? Initially, I thought that maybe there were, but I kept getting bored.
For example, at one point, while killing one baddie after another with a knife, Jake ends up with blood splattered all over his right hand. I only rewound that part of the film to work out where they’d positioned a bowl of red liquid so he could dip his hand in it. Yes, for the most part, it’s that engaging(!)
Okay, so there’s at least one when a bomb goes off, and the screen has to clear. Given the visual FX they can add in post-production, I daresay they can cook up a break in most takes.
Thanks to our friends at Sky for the screener ahead of the broadcast.
One Shot is on Sky Cinema from Friday January 29th, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 96 minutes
Release date: January 29th 2022
Studio: Sky Cinema
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1
Rating: 4.5/10
Director: James Nunn
Producers: Marc Goldberg, Ben Jacques
Screenplay: Jamie Russell
Story: James Nunn
Music: Austin Wintory
Cast:
Jake Harris: Scott Adkins
Zoe Anderson: Ashley Greene Khoury
Jack Yorke: Ryan Phillippe
Brandon Whitaker: Emmanuel Imani
Danny Dietler: Dino Kelly
Lewis Ash: Jack Parr
Amin Mansur: Waleed Elgadi
Tom Shields: Terence Maynard
Hakim Charef: Jess Liaudin
Adamat: Andrei Maniata
Dhelkor: Lee Charles
Truck Passenger: Ladislav Basti
Female Staffer: Alana Maria
Nervous Detainee: Efeosa Afolabi
Base Sergeant: Dan Styles
Executed Marine 1: Jonathan Holby
Executed Marine 2: Jamie Chambers
Ben Dawson: Colin Michael Rance
Charef’s Bodyguards: Dimitris Kafataris, James Unsworth, Jake Nwogu
Base Sergeant: Duncan Casey (voice)
Prisoner: Anthony Abiola (uncredited)
Interrogation Marine: Justin Sysum (uncredited)
Lynx Pilot: Dita Tantang (uncredited)
Lynx Pilot: Ronin Traynor (uncredited)
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.