An Entertaining Old-School Actioner
Summary
Aftermath is a well paced 90 minutes packed with action and a truly hateful villain. It’s a welcome throwback to classic action movies and despite the odd CG explosion this is a tightly paced and exciting actioner.
Plot: A returning war veteran, stricken with PTSD, unwittingly gets trapped with his teenage sister on Boston’s Tobin Memorial Bridge as a heavily weaponized group of ex-military revolutionists take everyone hostage.
Review: I’ve been meaning to watch Aftermath for a while as the trailers looked like it would be an intense actioner and that’s exactly what it is. It’s sort of Die Hard on a Bridge with Dylan Sprouse as our hero Eric, a former Ranger who is trapped on a bridge with his little sister when terrorists take it over.
The villains are led by Jimmy ‘Romeo’ Roken (Mason Gooding) and they want to execute prisoner Doc (Dichen Lachman) live on air because she is planning on testifying against them for crimes they committed overseas. Jimmy is a hateful villain, the like of which we rarely see anymore and yet he is still human with believable motives.
This is an action packed 90 minutes with Dylan Sprouse making for an effective hero where we get fight scenes, shoot outs and (CG) explosions. They aren’t the worst I’ve seen but it does make some of the action look a little fake, which is a shame as this is a solid action picture otherwise. It has a few one-liners and feels like a throwback to the good old days with a lone hero taking out the trash.
The score is a particular highlight and is especially exciting during the action scenes, giving a welcome shot of adrenaline to proceedings.
Aftermath isn’t anything we haven’t seen before with PTSD as usual playing a big part in the main character’s journey but it’s definitely overused at this stage.
Overall, Aftermath may not be anything new, and the CG explosions are disappointing but it’s well paced and packed with action and a genuine sense of threat. Dylan Sprouse makes for a surprisingly effective action hero and I’d be happy to see him in more action movies in the future.