{"id":11277,"date":"2025-03-05T23:35:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T04:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11277"},"modified":"2025-03-05T23:35:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T04:35:28","slug":"bennetts-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/03\/05\/bennetts-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Bennett\u2019s War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Bennett\u2019s War <\/strong>(2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Forrest Films\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some language, brief violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Alex Ranarivelo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Alex Ranarivelo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jamie Christopherson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Reuben Steinberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 30, 2019 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Michael Roark, Ali Afshar, Allison Paige, Trace Adkins, Hunter Clowdus, Brando Eaton, Tony Panterra, Michael King, Taylor Kalupa, Anton Fair.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $1.1M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0I literally never heard of Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong> until three days before its unceremonious release this past Friday when the only other major release was the dull thriller Don\u2019t Let Go. I guess the lack of competition at the box office prompted the studio to drop it into the dreaded Labor Day weekend slot, the final weekend of the summer movie season. Had Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong> not opened at my multiplex of choice (the AMC Marple 10 in Springfield, PA), I probably wouldn\u2019t have bothered with it. With the sheer number of non-theatrically released movies that show up weekly on streaming services and OnDemand, I have to be choosy. I can\u2019t watch everything. When Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong> showed up on the Marple 10 schedule (a last-minute booking from what I understand), I decided to take a chance on it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As it turns out, Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong> isn\u2019t all that bad. It\u2019s not all that great either. It\u2019s a heavily cliched drama that combines sports movies tropes with a bit of flag-waving patriotism. The story centers on Marshall Bennett (Roark, Dolphin Tale), a motocross champ who set aside his career to serve as a motorcycle-riding Ranger in Afghanistan. He and his best bud Riley (King, The Dog Lover) become casualties after they hit an IED while escaping enemy fire. He sustains injuries to his leg that not only end his military career but also his riding days.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Marshall comes home to the family farm where his wife Sophie (Paige, The Dog Lover) has just given birth to their first child. He goes to work for his friend Cyrus (Afshar, Running Wild) as a motorcycle mechanic at his shop. Obviously, he\u2019s unhappy about where life has taken him. His desire to ride competitively again can be attributed to a couple of factors. The main one would have to be saving the farm from foreclosure. Marshall\u2019s dad (county singer Adkins) has the place mortgaged to the eyeballs. With the price of feed going up and not being able to afford hired help, losing his home is a very real possibility. There\u2019s also a question of pride. Sophie has become overprotective to the point where she won\u2019t allow Marshall to do anything that could possibly result in further injury. She refuses to even entertain the thought of him getting back in the saddle (so to speak). He needs to feel like a man again; he needs to be useful.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One day, Marshall sneaks off to the track with Cyrus and enters a race. The prize money is almost enough to cover what\u2019s owed to the bank. He\u2019ll be going up against a rival team managed by Cyrus\u2019 cousin, real life motocross racer Tony Panterra (as himself). They may as well be wearing Cobra Kai gis for the subtlety with which they\u2019re presented. The two stars, brothers Chris (Clowdus, TV\u2019s All American) and Kurt Walker (Eaton, Woodlawn), are accurately described by somebody as \u201centitled pricks\u201d. Like their Karate Kid brethren, they\u2019re not above playing dirty pool. In any event, this marks Marshall\u2019s first step on the long road to reentering the sport he loves so much.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by Alex Ranarivelo (The Dog Lover), Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong> is as formulaic and predictable as sports dramas come. There\u2019s never any question that Sophie will come around and not only support his dream but help make it come true by becoming part of the team. Likewise, it\u2019s a given that Marshall will experience a major setback and temporarily lose hope. And it will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that Marshall will find an ally in the least likely of persons. Looking at these plot points, I could be describing any of the Rocky movies. Ranarivelo eases up a bit on the patriotism part in that our hero never wraps himself up in the American flag. But if I\u2019m being honest, he could have explored Marshall\u2019s post-Army struggles with greater depth. He briefly mentions issues with the VA (Veteran\u2019s Administration) involving his benefits (it\u2019s been a year and he\u2019s still not receiving them) but the movie never follows up on this. I think there\u2019s more to be said on the subject especially since it was deemed worthy enough to be brought up in the first case.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The VA thing isn\u2019t the only time Ranarivelo drops the narrative ball in Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong>. Saving the family home was Marshall\u2019s main reason for racing again. After that first race, the matter is dropped completely. I don\u2019t know if this is an oversight on the part of the director or we\u2019re supposed to assume all is okay. Either way, it\u2019s something that should have been resolved in a more definite manner. In any event, this is when Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong> collapses into a pile of sports movies tropes. While it brings nothing new to the genre, it\u2019s not ineffective either. It kind of works in that you\u2019re rooting for Marshall to triumph at the end.<\/p>\n

\u00a0None of the performances in Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong> are particularly memorable. They\u2019re neither good nor bad; I guess you can call them serviceable. Roark makes a likable protagonist. Adkins adds equal levels of gruffness and warmth. Afshar, in full Fisher Stevens mode, provides nice comic relief. Eaton is sufficiently hateful as the racer with a professional\/personal grudge against Marshall. The racing scenes are competently done. The good thing about low profile films like Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong> is that they don\u2019t feel obligated to overedit certain scenes to the point of confusion and incoherence. Ranarivelo and his team give the viewer a good sense of where the main characters are in relation to each other on the track. We get to see some good riding here. Motocross fans should be especially pleased.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I find it extremely difficult to be hard on Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong>. It\u2019s so well-intentioned and low-key that you can\u2019t help but like it. No, it isn\u2019t fine cinema. Yes, it\u2019s Identikit storytelling. But like I said, I\u2019m unable to come down on Bennett\u2019s War<\/strong>. It\u2019s a nice movie, inspirational even. Aside from some bad language, it makes for decent family viewing. It\u2019s not too bad a way to wrap up the summer movie season.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bennett\u2019s War (2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Forrest Films\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 95 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (some language, brief violence)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Alex Ranarivelo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Alex Ranarivelo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jamie Christopherson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Reuben Steinberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 30, 2019 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Michael Roark, Ali Afshar, Allison Paige, Trace Adkins, Hunter Clowdus, Brando Eaton, Tony Panterra, Michael King, Taylor Kalupa, Anton Fair.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Bennetts-War-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11340,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11277\/revisions\/11340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}