Review: Stratton

An instantly forgettable action flick based on Duncan Falconer's successful Stratton books, Stratton stars Dominic Cooper as the title character, a soldier of the Special Boat Service (SBS), which is to the UK what the Navy Seals are to the US.

The film begins with Stratton and fellow soldier Marty (Tyler Hoechlin) on their latest mission in Iran (though it may as well be anywhere else in the world for all its lack of Middle Eastern flavour), which involves securing a deadly pathogen known as "Satan's Snow." After a fairly exciting extended underwater sequence during which both Stratton and Marty are depleted of their oxygen supplies, the two enter a suspiciously abandoned lab, only to discover that not only has the pathogen been stolen but that every scientist and worker has been killed. Marty himself ends up a fatality in an ensuing shootout with armed baddies, and Stratton has to take some time to feel the guilt of losing his partner, who was about to start a family.

Stratton's boss Sumner (Connie Nielsen, sporting some sort of accent that only gets more ridiculous by the second) tasks Stratton and several other figures including technical operative Aggy (Gemma Chan, lovely but underused) and American recruit Hank (Austin Stowell) to track down the man who made away with the pathogen, Grigory Barovsky (Thomas Kretchmann), a long-presumed international terrorist that Sumner bills as the most dangerous person she's ever encountered. In case her statement wasn't strong enough, Barovsky is shown doing a test run of the pathogen on unsuspecting men, women and children. Chases are set in Rome and London, though none of the action sequences are especially noteworthy.

Stratton is meant to be a Bond meets Bourne type of character, and Cooper does a solid enough job, but there's nothing about Stratton that warrants another entry or even a second viewing. Part of this may be attributed to the budget though sometimes that constraint can lead to creativity, which is certainly not the case here. There simply isn't anything interesting about Stratton the character or Stratton the film.

Stratton

Directed by: Simon West

Written by: Warren Davis II, Duncan Falconer; based on the novels by Duncan Falconer

Starring: Dominic Cooper, Gemma Chan, Austin Stowell, Tyler Hoechlin, Tom Felton, Thomas Kretschmann, Derek Jacobi, Connie Nielsen