Kajaki: The True Story - reviews of ‘blistering war pic'

What you need to know

A new drama about British soldiers in Afghanistan, Kajaki: The True Story, has opened in UK cinemas. Directed by Paul Katis, it is based on the true story of Mark Wright, a British soldier who helped save the lives of injured soldiers in Helmand Province.

Set in 2006, it tells the story of a small group of British soldiers on a routine patrol in Helmand who become trapped in a mine-laden riverbed. As attempts to extract them cause more havoc they realise that each step they take could be their last.

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What the critics like

Kajaki proves that you don't need an Apocalypse Now budget and Marlon Brando "to give us a palpitating glimpse into the abyss", says Tim Robey in the Daily Telegraph. This excruciatingly tense picture is impressively committed to ground-level realism, with a uniformly strong ensemble and a boisterous sense of gallows humour.

Kajaki "lulls unsuspecting viewers with its droll, authentic portrait of base camp routine", before steering matters sharply into urgent (and bloody) life-or-death territory, says Guy Lodge in Variety. With muscular technical brio that belies its limited budget, it's a thriller in which single footsteps become wince-inducing dramatic pivots, while never exploiting real-life carnage for shock effect.

This expertly made, "blistering war pic", is not about fighting to win as much as fighting to survive, says Nev Pierce in Empire. Tense, blackly comic and troubling because it's so recent and so real, it will make you flinch and could make you cry.

What they don't like

With its unswerving commitment to depict the soldiers as ordinary men in an extraordinary situation "Kajaki remains fundamentally incurious about wider political considerations", says Andrew Pulver in The Guardian. With barely a shot fired in anger, and little evidence of actual Afghans, it's clear the subject matter was picked to avoid such thematic quicksand, still, this film possesses a lacerating power.