There are higher-profile director/actor duos out there, but quietly, Rod Lurie and Scott Eastwood might be the best. They came together on 2019’s Afghanistan War drama The Outpost, an absolutely riveting spectacle that was one of the best films of that year. Now they’re back with a very different battlefield experience set during WWII, Lucky Strike. Similar to the recent prestige film Pressure, Lurie is telling a story of the conflict that is unlike any you have heard, and that such things are still possible; it takes you by surprise.
Lucky Strike begins confusingly, looking like a very different movie than what it ultimately turns out to be. We witness an all-Black squad of soldiers picked off by Nazi forces after their vehicle gets stuck in the mud. Following that, we’re introduced to Eastwood’s Capt. Castle, an engineer who could’ve gotten a deferment from the war but enlisted anyway because, well, that’s the kind of thing you did back then. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays someone close to one of the men who died in the attack, but we don’t quite understand what it’s all about.
Flashing back to 1944 in Belgium’s Ardennes forest, Castle and his men find themselves in a similarly deadly predicament. They are charged with booby-trapping a key roadway. The truck is a mess, and they must leave it behind, which puts them at greater risk. The camaraderie and easy banter between the men is a reminder of one of The Outpost’s many highlights. Lurie also dials up the tension of the situation; the longer it takes the more we feel the oppressive weight of inevitable doom. Sure enough, the Nazis attack and the men are picked off by a sniper. In the film’s most best adrenaline rush moment, Castle charges up a hill and takes out the killer with a grenade, but not before being shot through the leg. His only hope is to hoof it 30 klicks to get to the evac point. But he’s behind enemy lines, and survival seems unlikely.
Suddenly, Lucky Strike has turned into Behind Enemy Lines, but a better version than that forgettable Owen Wilson actioner. This isn’t a shoot ’em up, even though I think Eastwood would be damn good at that if it were. It’s a thinking man’s thriller, where Castle is forced to come up with solutions on the fly at nearly every turn. When he’s attacked, it usually happens suddenly, and he must improvise by using whatever is close at hand, and not everything is reliable. Even less reliable are the people he encounters, who might be Germans in disguise, or worse, Americans working for the Nazis. Sometimes, even when he does find people willing to give him shelter, the Germans are never too far away.
Some of the stuff Castle goes through is simply insane, like when he commandeers a tank and then gets trapped in it after it tumbles over a cliff. These scenarios might seem wild, but Lurie and Eastwood play them straight and with conviction. I used to think that Eastwood, with his rigid jawline and thin, peering eyes, was trying too hard to be like his father. There’s definitely a lot of Clint in the aura that comes with his performances, but Scott has really come into his own and I think a lot of that has to do with Lurie. Lucky Strike could’ve used more of Eastwood interacting with others, but he capably carries the film on his shoulders.
And then we learn what the film is truly about, and it feels like it came from a different movie entirely. While I won’t give away everything, you’ll likely pick up that Castle has the most reliable radio ever seen in a war movie. It runs counter to everything we’ve seen in similar films, where the radio never EVER works right in the heat of battle, that it’s impossible not to notice. Lucky Strike is inspired by true events that are part of a hidden history with long unsung heroes. If we’re so lucky, it won’t be the last time Lurie gets to honor them on the silver screen.
Lucky Strike opens in theaters on June 26th.
