Recon (2019)

(On Cable TV, September 2021) It’s really not a good sign when you’re almost at the end of the film and still wonder when it’s really going to start. Alas, that’s what awaits you with limp WW2 adventure Recon, in which a few American soldiers walk through the Italian countryside, witness war atrocities, and are settled by vaguely superstitious portents. The unusually grayed-out cinematography certainly doesn’t help the film get away from the doldrums — everything is muted, featureless and frankly boring to look at: How many times can we stay interested in four guys walking through snow-dusted fields? It feels cold and lifeless, and writer-director Robert David Port’s pacing is so slow as to drown out whatever happens in the narrative. The film’s low budget and unconvincing research clearly show in the unconvincing period detail, dubious portrayal of military men, and strict avoidance of anything that could look like too much money outside a few carefully-planned CGI shots. The characters are not particularly likable, further adding to the sense that the film is forever about to really begin. Recon could have used supernatural elements more strongly didn’t, leaving the impressing that the film falls in-between two chairs between credible historical re-creation and supernatural fantasy. In other words, I have reconned Recon and can report that there’s nothing going on there.