I was entertained by the story of a man fighting his inner demons and through his fight for survival, he discovers a lot about himself and his willingess to want to live and be with his fiancee and be a better person. A solid performance from Armie Hammer and a good debut from Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro, “Mine” is a film worth watching!
TITLE: Mine
FILM RELEASE: 2016
DURATION: 107 Minutes
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, 2:35:1, English and Spanish 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Subtitles: English SDH
COMPANY: Well Go USA Entertainment
RATED: NR
RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2017
Directed by Fabio Guaglione, Fabio Resinaro
Screenplay by Fabio Guaglione, Fabio Resinaro
Produced by Peter Safran
Co-Producer: Andrea Cucchi, Isaac Torras, Joan Mao, Pasquale Pozzessere
Executive Producer: Miguel Angel Faura, Natalia Safran
Music by Luca Balboni, Andrea Balboni
Cinematography by Sergi Vilanova
Edited by Filippo Mauro Boni, Fabio Guaglione, Matteo Santi
Casting by Rose Wicksteed
Production Design by Mani Martinez
Costume Design by Coro Mateo
Starring:
Armie Hammer as Mike
Annabelle Wallis as Jenny
Tom Cullen as Tommy Madison
Clint Dyer as Berber
Geoff Bell as Mike’s Father
Julie Aubrey as Mike’s Mother
Ines Pinar Mille as Berber Girl
A U.S. soldier (Armie Hammer, FREE FIRE, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.) is stranded in the desert for 52 hours after a mission falls apart and must fight for survival against his enemies, the hostile environment, and the creeping psychological toll of his treacherous situation. Annabelle Wallis (ANNABELLE, THE MUMMY) and Tom Cullen (DOWNTON ABBEY) co-star in this tense, explosive military thriller from the producer of BURIED and THE CONJURING.
What would you do if you were in the middle of desert, foot steps on a mine and the only rescue is three days away?
This is the main story in the psychological thriller film co-directed and co-written by Italian filmmaking duo Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro (both worked on the short films “The Silver Rope”, “Y/N: You Lie, You Die”), their filmaking debut.
The film stars Armie Hammer (“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”, “The Lone Ranger”, “Nocturnal Animals”), Annabelle Wallis (“Annabelle”, “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”) , Tom Cullen (“Weekend”, “Knightfall”, “Black Mirror”) and Clint Dyer (“Sus”).
“Mine” takes place in a country where US Marines Mike Stevens (portrayed by Armie Hammer) and Tommy Madison (portrayed by Tom Cullen) are sent to assassinate a terrorist while at a wedding ceremony.
As Tommy tries to get Mike to make the shot, Mike resists, not wanting to kill someone during their wedding and his personal convictions get in the way of his mission and they fail their mission.
To make matters worse, both men are seen by the terrorists guards and due to an oncoming sandstorm in the desert, both men are able to escape from the terrorists. But unfortunately, with their GPS broken to reveal their position to the military, the two are lost and are not sure where they are going.
After walking for miles and the sandstorm disappearing and with little water, both walk into an area where they discover a warning sign. Tommy tells them its a Berber trick to keep people away from villages but Mike estimates that with 40 years of conflicts, there are over 33 million landmines in the area (Fact: To this day, there are an unknown number of mines throughout areas like North Africa, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and the Western Sahara and to this day, thousands of people and also animals have been affected by land mines. And extraction of landmines from the desert have been slow.)
As Mike and Tommy walk to the area, Tommy steps onto a mine and his legs are blown off. While Mike also steps on a mine but his foot remains place on top. As both men are panicking and Tommy is in extreme pain, he decides to end his life, while Mike tries to radio in for help. But with no help for 58 hours, he must withstand the elements, withstand wolves and possible enemies until then while remaining in place and not lifting his foot off the mine.
Will he succeed? And will he be rescued?
VIDEO:
“Mine” is presented in 1080p High Definition (2:35:1 aspect ratio). Featuring close-ups with very good detail, the film looks very good as the majority of the film are outdoor scenes which are colorful and vibrant. Scenes of blown up appendages, blood and grime are also quite detailed. But great use of visual effects throughout the film.
I didn’t notice any major artifacts, banding or issues with picture quality during my viewing of the film.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Mine” is presented in English and Spanish 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. The film is primarily dialogue driven with surround sound usage during gun fire which takes places sporadically through the film.
Subtitles are in English SDH
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Mine” comes with the following special features:
- Deleted Scenes – Featuring four deleted scenes.
- Storyboards – (4:45) The making of the film via storyboards. A comparison with the storyboards and the final cut of the film.
- VFX – (4:54) A featurette about the visual effects used in the film in transforming visual scenery to look like a real desert, Tommy’s blown up legs and creations of sandstorms to mine explosions.
- The Making of With Armie Hammer – (13:09) Armie Hammer talks about the making of “Mine”.
- Trailer
EXTRAS:
“Mine” comes with both a Blu-ray and DVD version of the film.
For the directorial debut for duo Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro, their psychological thriller “Mine” is less about a military film about American Marines versus the terrorists but more about a soldier forced to face his own demons and internal conflict.
Actor Armie Hammer takes on one of the more psychological and dramatic roles in his career. As Mike Stevens, Mike must go through sleep and water deprivation and to keep himself awake and alert, he starts to think about his life. How he has treated his girlfriend Jenny (portrayed by Annabelle Wallis) but also his anger issues that go far back, with an abusive father (portrayed by Geof Bell) and seeing his mother (portrayed by Juliet Aubrey) being abused and remembering the times he was beaten up. But how it led him to have anger issues and fighting himself inside of not wanting to be like his father.
But throughout the film, we start seeing a few characters. Are they real? Are they figments of his imagination?
If anything, the film rests slowly on Armie Hammer’s shoulders as he must play a character in various stages of sleep, water and food deprivation. Fear, anger, sadness, happiness, you name it, it’s a type of character role that many actors don’t often get to play.
And while I enjoyed the psychology aspect of the film, we go back to the first 15 minutes and I’ve read a few people who are from the military questioning how the US Marines are treated. I’m not an erudite on military strategy or how soldiers are treated, so I can’t tell you if how these soldiers are portrayed would happen in real life.
Are important missions to two-man teams? Would a soldier be left in the desert for that long? Would a soldier be able to withstand movement during a heavy sandstorm, while trying not to lift his foot off a mine? I don’t have the answer to those questions. And I’m sure for some people, there would be many questioning those aspects of the film.
But through my research, I was surprised to read that to this very day, there are thousands of people and animals that are killed or seriously injured by mines planted in the desert since World War II. Extraction of the mines have been slow and for the most part, the desert (especially in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and the Sahara Desert) is still unsafe because there are unknown number of land mines that were planted and are still there.
But I watched the film not focused too much on the military operations or storm physics but more of the psychological battle of a man who is trying to fight and survive.
The film was shot in Morocco and with the accompanied VFX special feature, it’s amazing how the location was made to look like a desolate desert in post, to have sand flying around the soldiers and color correcting to make the film look authentic. In someways, it would have been interesting to have an audio commentary included because I’m curious about how much was invested in the film and if it was shot entirely on a low budget with most of the work done via visual effects during the post-production process.
Overall, I was entertained by the story of a man fighting his inner demons and through his fight for survival, he discovers a lot about himself and his willingess to want to live and be with his fiancee and be a better person. A solid performance from Armie Hammer and a good debut from Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro, “Mine” is a film worth watching!
