AFTERMATH

US, 2024, 97 minutes, Colour.

Dylan Sprouse, Mason Gooding, Dichen Lachmann, Daniel Rios Jr, Megan Stott, Will  Lyman.

Directed by Patrick Lussier.

One of the many action-popcorn thrillers to sit back and watch on streaming services. It has a Christmas setting – which may remind audiences of thrillers set at Christmas, especially Die Hard. Aftermath is in this vein.

The setting is Boston, the Tobin Bridge, just before Christmas. A former Army man, dismissed from the Army for not obeying orders because of compassion for an Afghan woman oppressed by her husband who shoots her, is driving across the bridge with his younger sister, precocious and forward, wanting to drive the car and his allowing her. He is obviously protective of her – memories of the woman in Afghanistan.

Suddenly, an explosion, the central part of the bridge destroyed and falling into the River, some cars, and cars parked on both sides of the gap.

The audience has also been introduced to a tough female prisoner, Doc, being transported in the van across the bridge – and audiences will guess that the explosion is to get to her. The reason, she has been part of an elite squad of former soldiers, employed by the government for jobs outside regulations, she having given information to the authorities.

The film establishes the group who are out to capture Doc alive, a bargaining point with the authorities. And they want the Pentagon to publish a document on the issues.

What follows is as expected, the young man emerges from his car, putting his military training into action, more than might have been expected. His sister gets out of the car and gets caught up in a lot of the action, finally being offered a safe haven by a driver with his baby. A whole lot of cat and mouse chases and shootouts on the bridge as the audience begins to see the person in charge, his team, the action to track down and get rid of the military man. And, eventually, Doc is drawn into this kind of action.

The team is led by a fierce young former officer, played by Mason Gooding. The screenplay requires him to be young, to be ruthless, determined, but also later revealing that he has a brain tumour. Which explains his action and desperation – but, number of commentators have questioned the casting and the performance (as does this review).

A lot of heroics, a lot of sniping, a lot of shootouts, a special segment where it is revealed that the whole bridge has been set up with explosives and the young Army man, with the help of a sympathetic Vietnam veteran, is able to go under the bridge to defuse the explosives. Which may not matter because in the leader’s van are even more explosives threatening the bridge.

On the periphery are the police, trying to get intelligence of what is happening, who is behind the disaster, trying to make contact.

Not the greatest of action adventures like this but watchable when an audience is in an undemanding mood.