Most critics come away impressed, and the praise clusters in one place: the long battle that takes up much of the second half. Review after review singles out the staging of that sequence, the point-of-view camerawork and the clear mapping of the outpost, for making the terror of the fight legible without losing the viewer. Several also credit the film with keeping the soldiers’ sacrifice, rather than any sense of victory, at the centre.
The reservations gather around everything before the shooting starts. More than one critic finds the screenplay thin on character, and some note a modest, straight-to-video look in the quieter stretches. The spread is wide at the bottom: the Los Angeles Times is the clear outlier, calling the film hollow and monotonous and faulting it for sidestepping the larger questions around the battle, while still admiring the combat photography. HeyUGuys stands slightly apart the other way, praising the performances as much as the action.