Crossfire (TV Movie 2016)

Crossfire: Directed by Claude Desrosiers. With Roxanne McKee, Steve Lund, Tim Rozon, Stacey Farber. When National Guard soldier Samantha Harrison returns from the front lines of Iraq, she realizes that none of her training helps her deal with PTSD or the struggles of returning to a normal life. Samantha comes home to find out she’s being blamed for a friendly fire incident that killed two Americans and she becomes the target of an obsessed soldier seeking revenge for their deaths. She tries to reassemble her fragmented memories of that horrific night in order to convince everyone, including herself, that she didn’t do it. Who do you turn to when you can’t trust your own memories and the few people you do trust are being killed off one by one?

“When National Guard soldier Samantha Harrison (McKee) returns to her hometown after a tour in Iraq, which has left her with a pending u0026quot;Friendly Fireu0026quot; charge, she finds u0026quot;Normalu0026quot; life is harder than serving in a war-zone. Graydon (Rozon) is the sole survivor of the team Samantha supposedly gunned down and heu0026#39;s looking for both justice and revenge. Unable to remember the night in question, Samantha has to rely on the testimonies of her squad; Billy (Koensgen), Bobby (Thebaud), and Jimmy (Lund)… However, after both Billy and Bobby take their own lives it becomes evident to Samantha thereu0026#39;s something darker going on and she sets out to solve the mystery.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is a very well thought out mystery with strong believable characters that are portrayed respectfully by the actors and actresses. McKee makes a good lead role and is so subtle in her portrayal, never going overboard on the emotional side, to make Samantha very believable. I could relate to her outburst of anxiety when she tries to seek law advice. She just cannot fill in the forms. You can see all the raw emotion on her face. Then after she takes flight, back in her car, you can see the relief flood over her along with the sadness and anger at not having been able to complete a simple task. This is pretty much spot on, as a sufferer of depression and anxiety, I can relate. Lund too is great in his portrayal. His character also has as many different flaws that he brings across to the audience in a believable way. The only thing I would have liked would have been a little more structure and drive to Rozonu0026#39;s character, Graydon. This could have been used to create a little more unease and suspense, especially revolving around the inevitable twist. This, however, could have been down to writing or direction, rather than acting. I must also pay respect too to Thebaudu0026#39;s character, Bobby, who injects the idea of a conspiracy theory into the storyline. He does this so well, you can see that heu0026#39;s worried about his and his families life. There are no small parts in this film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe story, on the whole, is good and flows well. It does have a few slight flaws. If youu0026#39;re a fan of mysteries then youu0026#39;ll have solved this one pretty quickly as itu0026#39;s not a great twist. As I said before, it could have been made better. The other is the constant bombardment of u0026quot;getting councillingu0026quot;. Donu0026#39;t get me wrong, I believe therapy can be a good thing but itu0026#39;s pushed too much within the run of the movie.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe direction is well above standard for a TV Movie and helps to keep the audienceu0026#39;s attention, as well as creating atmosphere. Though I do believe there was a chance missed to make Graydon appear more ominous and driven. I particularly liked the use of colourisation. Muddy browns for a melancholy moment and greys for sad and depressing scenes. Even the flashbacks to the combat looked realistic, even though they werenu0026#39;t on a large scale, which I think actually helped their power.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf you like a war drama with an interweaving mystery to solve this is the film to watch. I really enjoyed the film and would be happy to watch it again at some time…”