Oh dear. One More Shot
In my defence it was Sunday afternoon and I felt like some daft, brainless action but the words 'a Sky Original' should always be approached with caution.
A sequel I'm sure nobody asked for to a similarly micro-budgeted Brit action flick One Shot, starring Scott Adkins, the Lidl version of Jason Statham and centred around the 'single shot' approach, as briefly popularised by Sam Mendes in 1917.
The first one was "ok" - basically a first person shooter video game brought to live action - running round a series of bunkers in some 'black ops site' but the second one, still adhering - very unwisely - to the 'single shot' maxim shifts to what they attempt to convince us is Washington airport when it's screamingly obvious that it's Stansted, deserted for no doubt budgetary reasons.
Adkins is a decent action performer and there are a handful of well-choreographed hand to hand combat scenes in between endless shakycam running about, shooting and ducking, occasionally nipping out of shot to, oh I don't know, go to the loo or something. The one shot premise gives us intentional highlights like an extended scene of the main character ascending an escalator, or walking round a deserted airport. The whole thing is like a rejected plot for a series of 24 that was sent back with 'too hackneyed, try harder' written on it.
We get the unedifying spectacle of a desiccated Tom Berenger who is quite obviously being fed his lines through an earpiece, complete with unnatural gaps and pauses, like someone relaying the instructions to reset the burglar alarm after it's gone off.
Mercifully short, Sky presumably get some sort of tax break for churning out this sort of stuff.