Scott Adkins’ Lieutenant Jake Harris is back for another rodeo in a one-shot film, this time titled One More Shot. The story continues from the previous installment released in 2021, where a pack of Navy SEALs arrived at a secret correctional facility on Black Island, Poland, to pick up an alleged terrorist named Amin Mansur. CIA analyst Zoe Anderson and her team had gathered some intel that Mansur’s associates had planted a lethal bomb at the heart of Washington, DC, in order to send a message to the most powerful country in the world. Only Mansur knew the location of the bomb, which was why Zoe, with the help of Harris and his team, wanted to transfer Mansur to the US as quickly as possible. However, before they could make their move, an army of mercenaries under the command of Hakim Shariff attacked the prison to retrieve Mansur for themselves. While the first film, One Shot, didn’t explain the reason behind the attack, the 2024 film removed all doubts and brought clarity to the entire narrative. So, without further ado, let’s break down the events of the two films and talk about what we can expect next.
Spoiler Alert
Why were the merchants looking for Amin Mansur?
Amin Mansur and his wife Niesha had a young son named Tariq, who died in a US drone attack while the family was visiting their relatives in Turkey. Tariq’s death shook Mansur to the core, and some foreign mercenaries used the man’s tragedy to turn him against the United States. Mansur’s British company used to make medical equipment that was exported throughout the world, and Zoe Anderson believed that Mansur used the channel to transport a nuclear bomb to the US.
At the end of One More Shot, Mansur confessed that he couldn’t control his rage after Tariq’s death and, therefore, agreed to help his handler, who contacted him from one of the Gulf countries and gave him a chance to take revenge against his son’s killers. On the instructions of his handler, he collected all the necessary materials needed to build a nuclear bomb and sent it to the United States. However, Mansur didn’t trust the people contacting him, which was why he switched the shipping containers before sending them. Mansur would have informed his handlers about the change of containers if he hadn’t been arrested by the Turkish police at the airport, as they caught him using a blacklisted passport. After his arrest, Mansur was sent to a prison in Poland, which was why Hakim Shariff attacked the American base so as to retrieve the location of the bomb from Amin Mansur.
Was it a Terrorist attack?
As soon as Jake Harris and Amin Mansur arrived in the USA, Jennifer Lomax, from Homeland Security, rerouted their airplane from Andrews Air Force Base to Washington, Baltimore Airport, where Mansur had originally sent the container with the nuclear bomb inside it. Agent Lomax was working for an unknown man, who had contracted a private military company called Farbridge, to secure Mansur and get the container’s serial number so that they could arm the bomb as soon as possible and blackmail the United States government.
Until the very end of the film, it all seemed like a terrorist attack, but Lomax’s intricate plan was to terrorize the government with a radioactive threat so that all the heads of the key government agencies would be transported to a single secure site. Later, Lomax and her boss would threaten these officials to get access to the country’s key strategic defenses, which they wanted to sell to a foreign buyer and turn into a lavish business deal.
How did Mansur die?
The mercenaries used Mansur’s identity and religion to mask their greedy campaign and forced the man to confess in front of the camera to take responsibility for a nuclear blast. Mansur was helpless, as the ruthless mercenaries had kept his wife and unborn son at gunpoint, and he couldn’t do anything to protect them. Jake Harris was Mansur’s only hope, and he knew that the Navy SEAL officer would fulfill his promise and protect his family at all costs. After recording Mansur’s confession, Agent Lomax shot the man to his death, but before they could do the same to his wife and unborn son, Harris intervened and saved Niesha from the mercenaries.
Did Harris stop the attack?
During One More Shot’s ending, Jake Harris unleashed his fury upon the enemies and single-handedly eliminated the two most pious mercenaries, Campbell and Dunbar, along with their teams. Finally, he came out on the tarmac, where Robert Jackson and his remaining men were loading the nuclear bomb in an ambulance. Lomax asked her team to switch off the jammers as she needed to make an urgent call before moving forward, and Harris used the opportunity to contact his senior, Admiral Mulholland, to inform him about the entire fiasco. In the meantime, Jackson prepared the ambulance, but before he could drive out the bomb, Harris tried to stop the criminal, which led to a fierce one-on-one battle between the two. In the end, Harris thrashed Jackson and cuffed him to heavy machinery so that he couldn’t run away and could be prosecuted for his crimes.
Lomax, on the other hand, used the distraction to board an airplane that was about to take off, and Harris followed her to stop her from getting away. In the airplane corridor, Lomax surrendered to Harris and informed him that they had already accomplished what they wanted to. The POTUS was already in the air, and the Joint Chiefs were being taken to a secret location where the mercenaries would be waiting for them. It all happened because Harris informed Admiral Mulholland about the nuclear bomb, and the Admiral rang the alarm bells in no time. In a way, Harris helped the mercenaries in their plan, and even though Navy SEAL arrested Lomax in the end, Harris had to run to the secure site so as to stop the mercenaries from getting access to US strategic defense data. But before that, the lieutenant had a responsibility to fulfill. He took away Lomax’s phone so that he could delete Mansur’s fake confession before it could find its way on social media and taint the man’s identity or his religion forever. He didn’t want an innocent man to be branded as a terrorist, and therefore, Harris erased the confession forever.
What to Expect Next?
James Nunn’s third film in the franchise, which is most likely to be titled One Final Shot or One Last Shot, will take place on the unnamed secure site where all the key government players have been enroute. Lomax’s boss and his men are most likely going to attack the premises, and Lieutenant Jake Harris will once again wield the weapon to stop the mercenaries from bringing havoc to the world. It can also be speculated that the FBI is going to interrogate Agent Lomax to get the identity of his mysterious handler, and if not, then Jake Harris might have to find it all by himself; after all, he is a one-man army fighting against all odds. However, in the third film, there will not be a single Mansur to protect; instead, Harris has to protect a whole bunch of people from the mercenary attack. With One Shot and One More Shot, James Nunn and the team that he has worked with have proven that they have mastered the art of the faux long take, while pulling off some of the most intricate and jaw-dropping sequences that the genre has ever seen. Hopefully, with the final film in the franchise, they are going to take their craft to yet another level, thereby giving fans one of the best action trilogies of all time.
