{"id":11889,"date":"2025-05-09T20:56:05","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T00:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11889"},"modified":"2025-05-17T16:54:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T20:54:14","slug":"shadow-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/05\/09\/shadow-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Shadow Force"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Shadow Force <\/strong>(2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 104 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence and language throughout)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joe Carnahan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Leon Chills and Joe Carnahan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Craig DeLeon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Juan Azpiroz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 9, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Mark Strong, Da\u2019Vine Joy Randolph, Cliff \u201cMethod Man\u201d Smith, Jahleel Kamara, Marshall Cook, Ed Quinn, Marvin Jones III (aka Krondon), Jenel Stevens-Thompson, Sala Baker, Natalia Reyes, Yoson An.<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this one. Two highly trained assassins working for a shady government organization fall in love and decide to start a new life. They try to quit their jobs only to find out there\u2019s only one way out. They leave anyway. Now they\u2019re being sought after by their former employer who finds them after one of them slips up. Now they have no choice but to take up their old profession. Oh yeah, there\u2019s a small child in the mix.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The preceding has been the premise of countless movies and TV shows like the recent Netflix action-comedy Back in Action with Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx. It\u2019s also the premise of Shadow Force<\/strong>, an action piece starring Kerry Washington (Django Unchained) and Omar Sy (Jurassic World) as Kyrah and Isaac, formerly members of an elite outfit called Shadow Force. They\u2019ve been in hiding for the past several years. Kyrah is out there taking down her old colleagues while Isaac stays home to take care of their son Ky (Kamara). One day while running errands, armed men try to rob a bank. One of them makes the mistake of pointing his gun at little Ky. Isaac responds by beating the hell out of the entire gang. He then calmly picks up his boy and leaves as the police arrive.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Unfortunately, Isaac\u2019s act of heroism is caught on video. It goes viral and catches the attention of his old boss Cinder (Strong, Shazam), now the secretary-general of an outfit called G7. He immediately calls in the rest of Shadow Force and doubles the multi-million dollar bounties on their heads. Knowing what to expect, Isaac takes his son to a safe house where he reconnects with Kyrah. She\u2019s been away a long time, but it was all to keep their child safe. Reunited, they team up to protect their family and take SF down once and for all.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Isaac and Kyrah have a pair of allies in the form of Da\u2019Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) and rapper Method Man playing Auntie and Unc. Well, they\u2019re supposed to be allies, but are they? In a movie like Shadow Force<\/strong>, it\u2019s wise not to trust anybody. There\u2019s always a turncoat where the heroes least expect it and audiences most expect it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Joe Carnahan (Narc), Shadow Force<\/strong> is as mediocre as action movies come. It\u2019s one of those assembly line deals where every twist and turn of the plot can be seen coming from a mile off. That, in and of itself, isn\u2019t the worst sin an action movie can commit. No, Carnahan does something far worse. He delivers the action in a state of complete indifference. He brings none of the energy of Smokin\u2019 Aces. It\u2019s lazily plotted and plodding. Even the action scenes lack heart. Take the car chase. By all means, it should have been cool. The heroes are driving a vehicle with a machine gun mounted on a turret. What should be exciting isn\u2019t. It\u2019s as ho-hum as everything else going on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Washington and Sy are both fine actors, but they have zero chemistry here. It feels forced. Now it could be because Sy wasn\u2019t the original choice for the lead. Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us) was originally cast as Isaac, but got replaced by Sy after he stepped down. He stayed on as one of the producers. In any event, they appear to be doing their best, but there\u2019s only so much they can do with a half-assed script and disinterested direction. Strong plays the same kind of character he\u2019s played several times before. He\u2019s on autopilot here, going through the motions in a mechanical way. Kamara is okay, I guess. He gets a little too cutesy at times; however, I did laugh when he referred to somebody as an a**hole (he actually does it twice). I can\u2019t say a lot about the other team members because they\u2019re given zero development. They\u2019re literally hired guns, standing around waiting for somebody to kill.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The real MVP in Shadow Force<\/strong> is Oscar winner Randolph. However, her performance is as much a liability as an asset. She\u2019s funny and sassy as Auntie; her exchanges with Method Man are amusing. Unfortunately, she\u2019s not in synch with the rest of the film. It\u2019s like she\u2019s making a completely different movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only other good thing about Shadow Force<\/strong> is the Lionel Ritchie music. He\u2019s Isaac\u2019s singer of choice. He has a special affinity for \u201cTruly\u201d. His son, in a true show of \u201clike father, like son\u201d, loves \u201cBrick House\u201d by the Commodores (Lionel was a member in the 70s). It\u2019s nice seeing the R&B singer get his props. Too bad it\u2019s not in a better movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Honestly, Shadow Force<\/strong> is no big deal. It\u2019s not totally awful, but it\u2019s far from good. It\u2019s fair as indicated by my two-star rating. It\u2019s passable (barely), but definitely not worth a trip to the cinema. Wait for it to come on streaming.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Shadow Force (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 104 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (violence and language throughout)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Joe Carnahan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Leon Chills and Joe Carnahan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Craig DeLeon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Juan Azpiroz\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 9, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Mark Strong, Da\u2019Vine Joy Randolph, Cliff \u201cMethod Man\u201d Smith, Jahleel Kamara, Marshall Cook, Ed Quinn, Marvin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Shadow-Force-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\/11889","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=11889"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11896,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11889\/revisions\/11896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}