Where to watch The Elite
2 Stars
Five kids survive a airplane terrorist attack. They are trained from childhood to become an elite team of anti-terrorist fighters. When they are assigned to find out what happened to a batch of chemical-containing land-mines they find themselves facing the same men that brought down the flight which killed their parents. The fight becomes personal and they disobey orders to stop a missile launch against a computer convention crowd in Athens. They board a hijacked war ship and, retaining minimal wounds, prevent the attack.
The Elite is so overstuffed with plot that it’s like two or three episodes of television jammed into an action film that runs under two hours. The storyline is absurd and better suited for a weekly episodic narrative where some of the interesting elements of the story can be expanded upon further. The Elite, while not boring, does take awhile to develop, and the film never presents the audience with a main character. Jason Lewis and Maxine Bahns topline a cast that looks as if they have been selected from an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.
Steven Williams acting is the most enjoyable part of watching The Elite. I realized just how much I enjoy acting. The distinguished and commanding presence of Williams is comparable to that of Morgan Freeman. Writer/director Terry Cunningham packs his film with many characters and a lot of action, but ultimately it’s a bit too much. The Elite features a number of expensive and oversized action scenes that have been staged and photographed well. With sharper editing during the story meeting, The Elite would be a stronger film.
Directed by: Terry Cunningham
Written by: Terry Cunningham, Jay Froberg
Starring: Jürgen Prochnow, Maxine Bahns, Robin Givens