INVASION Review: Bobby Boermans’ Exciting Military Actioner Dares You To Be All You Can Be
Invasion opens in theaters and on VOD on February 21 from Well Go USA.
It’s cool to be new to movies. This market is wide open with a lot of barriers to cross and rabbit holes to climb down, so you’d be forgiven if up until now you’d never seen a film directed by Bobby Boermans. Thus, we get Invasion, the latest Dutch military action thriller coming stateside following its release in the Netherlands last April.
Invasion doesn’t waste too much time kicking things off, introducing our characters and setting the stage for the impending conflict at hand. We meet Andy (Tarikh Janssen), a Marine Corps trainee with one foot in the door as a training op curtails him from making the grade when his Acrophobia kicks in. Moments later, a foreign ship can be seen from a distance firing at innocent civilians on a beach in Curaçao before soldiers are seen infiltrating a Dutch Marine Corps base in neighboring Aruba.
It isn’t long before anyone realizes what’s about to happen is an invasion by the militarized forces of Central American territory of Veragua, a peak moment following years of brewing tension between Veragua’s tyrannical president, and the Netherlands. As the Hague struggles to asses the situation, Major Brewer (Raymond Thirry) and Marine Captain Bot (Fedja van Huêt) both have their work cut out for them in real time.
Cut off by distance and heavy fire, Brewer and his men are tasked with escorting a high value prisoner off the base before the Veraguan army can reach him. Meanwhile, Bot is assigned to send Marines out and extract the Dutch Ambassador Caan (Gijs Scholten van Aschat) and his assisstant from the territory. When the mission goes awry, Andy, with the remote help of fellow Marine in brother Judsel (Jasha Rudge) take measures of their own in a last ditch effort to get the Ambassador out alive.
Invasion offers a lot in its introductory leg, and the energy consistent from then on, even when things slow down some. The primary focus of the story is the most interesting though, which are Andy and Judsel. Family is one of the film’s core themes throughout, played brilliantly through its subtlety whilst letting the characters stay human and tell the story as it needed.
Janssen and Rudge are terrific, along with the supporting cast including co-stars Gijs Blom and Ortal Friend. Ziarah Janssen lends her support as Isa, sister to Andy and Judsel in a development that explores the minor complexities of their relationship. In this instance, Andy and Isa are more strangers to one another than siblings. Still, the reunion is less gauche than presumed to be and is precisely what Andy needed in the course of his own development.
Aside from the role of Veraguan President, Cruz, (Fidel Garcia Cortez), the enemy comes mostly as a faceless horde of antagonistic soldiers. Cruz is mentioned and seen less than a handful of times in the film so he pretty much comes and goes. The same go for a few of the ancillary characters we meet in the first half, although that caveat speaks typically to the usual tropes of military action films, i.e., staring down tragedy in the face of danger. Brewer and Bot share quite a poignant moment with one another in the first half of the film as a precursor that feels nothing at all like foreshadowing, which sets the stakes accordingly when a tragic moment hits.
The action is fast moving and brilliantly shot and coordinated, and the cinematography does especially well in some areas. High-octane gun battles are on the menu for Invasion which gracefully eases its way into a compelling rescue thriller, coated with a story that tops the patriotic layers with an interwoven tale about family and redemption. Well played, BB!
