This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Mile 22 brings in another big war time thriller as the heroes duke it out with the villains. It’s one of those films that does decide to do this through an interview lens as one character talks about what happens and keeps on spoiling different parts of the film. Definitely a bad decision but if you can get past that then the rest of the film is pretty good. I did like the cliffhanger so a sequel would be fun but I can see how the ending might be divisive.

The film introduces us to Silva who is a very good special agent captain but one who is also very emotional. The different characters debate what is wrong with him mentally or if he’s just a jerk but Silva is definitely very prone to going on large tirades about pretty much everything. He gets very emotional and explosive at all times so you can’t really predict what he will do next. You could say that he is the ultimate wild card. Well this latest mission involves a guy named Noor who has defected from his country and has intel on weapons of mass destruction. He requests a trip to America for his cooperation and the heroes don’t have much time since he has set his files to self destruct pretty soon. Silva agrees to help but he’ll have to keep an eye on this guy.

While the film’s title and poster is all about the 22 Mile drive, that doesn’t happen until very deep into the film. It felt like over half of the movie was really set up for this as we are introduced to the characters and the stakes. Setup is definitely good but this film does push it a bit as you’re waiting for the adventure. Silva’s group are all stars who can handle any mission but naturally you can probably expect some of them to get taken down in short order here. At the end of the day even top rate skills will buckle before superior numbers.

As always there are a number of moles and security breaks throughout the agency so Silva can’t trust too many people. They are also in enemy territory the whole time as the whole point is that Silva’s team is trying to get this guy to America. Until they reach those borders, they’re going to have to deal with an army of corrupt cops and agents trying to shoot them all. The villains aren’t exactly subtle either as they say to Silva’s face how they intend to handle this. Silva just has to try and destroy them all in return or it’ll be all over for him.

As the main character he is definitely fun. Silva’s the kind of guy you want on your side because yes he’s a super loud jerk who is constantly yelling but that means your opponent’s are in for a tough time. There’s even a saying about that how every team should have at least one jerk on it. The idea is to at the very least have someone who is really confident and not afraid to get in the other guy’s face. Silva is definitely comfortable in that role and it’s a good thing too since his teammates can also have their own issues.

Kerr for example is going through a messy divorce and has not been able to concentrate as much as usual because of this. She is constantly yelling and swearing as things don’t go her way. Additionally this line of work does result in not being home very often which certainly doesn’t help on the court side. The app she has to use as part of the package was pretty interesting though, I could see that being really useful for a lot of situations since at least every message is being tracked. No funny business happening off camera as long as the app is around and the fact that it logs each swear word is impressive.

Kerr probably should be able to control herself better while on the mission though. She bears some responsibility for not noticing the two intruders messing with the hostage. Finally Noor is the third member of the main characters. He’s the informant who is making a whole lot of demands and the guy is in control the whole time. I figured his meditation was a way of keeping track of the code for a while there but in the end that was a bit of a red herring. Noor gets a whole lot of character development as the film goes on and really excels in his role. He is neck and neck with Silva in terms of being the most interesting character.

He also does get a really intense fight scene when he has to face off against two fighters at once. It showed that his fighting skills were the real deal as any other character in this film would have likely been destroyed rather quickly. He definitely knows that he can’t trust the security of the USA by the end of that scene. Additionally this all star squad is completely off the books so at any point he could be destroyed. If they are too late to get to the plane and the data is deleted, well they’ll end up shooting him anyway. So there are a lot of ways that Noor could die and he has to be prepared for all of them.

The overall tone of the film varies from being your classic action fare to being a little more on the darker side. The ending itself is definitely really intense and for my two cents I would say I thought it was a good ending. It was really unexpected and happened quickly without dragging the reveal for too long. You come to the conclusions that the main cast come to at about the same time. I do think it does once again show how the heroes are super lax and unprepared with their procedures though. Procedures exist for safety and consistency so the instant you start going away from them you really start to open the door to a lot of problems.

Overall, Mile 22 is a good film. It balances a whole lot of different plots going on at the same time pretty well. The pacing and writing are on point so you’re engaged with the story throughout. The ending was definitely a bold choice and I definitely respect the decision there. A sequel would certainly come in handy to see how things go from here. I would hope that this time there is no narration from the future though. This is a very intense film without a whole lot of happy moments so you do need to enjoy the overall war vibes. I thought it was handled better than most and didn’t get quite as extreme as competitor titles. That said, you would want to avoid this film if you don’t like this level of violence. Neither side is really in a position to take hostages due to the situation.

Overall 6/10