Action thriller films with paper-thin plots and characters but a big budget to make explosions and assassinations look cool are not at all uncommon in today’s world, and Shadow Force is sadly one more addition to this long list of completely forgettable films. The plot here is centered around Issac Sarr and Kyrah Owens, two former soldiers of a special forces group named Shadow Force, who have to get back to the dirty business of tracking down and killing people, but only to protect themselves and their young son, Ky. Almost everything in Shadow Force, ranging from the narrative, acting performances, camerawork, and editing, is below par, making it a film to skip from every aspect.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
Shadow Force begins with a quote by neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall about how the basic instinct of human beings is not just to ensure their survival but also to keep their family safe. While Pearsall and his quote seem a bit of an odd choice to bring up at the beginning of an action thriller film, the significance of the words is evident as soon as the plot is introduced. Before that, though, one more seemingly unconnected scene plays out in Miami, where a woman working as a lone hitman manages to evade a team of tactically equipped soldiers, only to kill the leader of the team, codenamed Aloka, with her sniper rifle. The woman, who is referred to by her codename, Ombra, is actually Kyrah Owens, a retired assassin who once worked for a group of mercenaries called the Shadow Force, and she is currently on the run from her ex-employers.
Somewhere else in the United States of America, a fellow retired assassin, Issac Sarr, lives a mostly ordinary life as a single dad to a 5-year-old boy named Ky. Their routine is quite simple, and they seem to be in no danger until Issac walks into a bank one day, naturally accompanied by his son. A group of masked gunmen enters the bank with the intention of robbing the place, and they hold all the customers hostage. As Ky had walked away from the counter to explore the place by himself, he gets separated when the attempted robbery takes place, and one of the gunmen threatens to kill the boy when Issac begs him to let him reunite with his son. Issac clearly suggests that he will not get in the way of the robbery if he is allowed to be with his son, but the gunman refuses to oblige, and this triggers the ex-operative to return to his old ways. In what seems to be a flash, Issac takes down all of the robbers, killing them and stopping the robbery in the process, before escaping the bank with his son.
Although his heroics save Issac and his son from danger, it puts into motion a different kind of trouble, as a man named Jack Cinder is notified of the incident at the bank. Cinder happens to be the ex-director of the CIA and is currently the Secretary General of the G7, but he is currently occupied watching the security camera footage from the bank in order to confirm that it was indeed Issac Sarr who had brought down the robbers. Cinder immediately gets in touch with his old team of operatives and brings Shadow Force back into action, just to get hold of Issac and Kyrah. As it turns out, Kyrah also watches the footage from the bank using some super-secure internet to avoid being tracked and is irked at Issac for having exposed their young son, Ky, to such danger.
What is Shadow Force, and why is Cinder a controversial figure?
Jack Cinder, the main antagonist in the film, is a loathsome figure who has incidentally made it to the higher echelons of government service by some means. He mentions at one point how he had been a soldier in the US Army for twenty long years before making the switch to taking desk jobs in the American intelligence services. Cinder was resourceful enough to make it to the very top and become the director of the CIA, and it was during this time that he came up with the idea of Shadow Force. All first-world countries, especially the USA, would have benefitted from the presence of a secretive group of elite soldiers who would carry out covert operations and assassinate various targets on behalf of their government, without the latter being linked to these operations ever. Thus, Cinder started Shadow Force and recruited elite soldiers to carry out such operations, Issac and Kyrah being a part of the group as well.
Although Shadow Force still exists, Cinder has lost his position as the head of the CIA for some undisclosed reason, and he now currently serves as the Secretary General of the G7. However, as a news program reveals at the beginning of the film, he is also in considerable trouble because there is an ongoing investigation against him to find out if he was indeed involved in unlawful activities. Him setting up and running a covert ops group while being the CIA director was definitely illegal, and therefore, Cinder knows that there is trouble coming his way. Because of this, he even tries to use his influence at the G7 to cover up this investigation.
Why are Issac and Kyrah considered fugitives?
Issac and Kyrah were once extremely loyal and important members of Shadow Force, much loved by their boss, Jack Cinder. However, it all went wrong when the two operatives fell in love with each other and decided to leave the group in order to start a family together. Since the official rules of the group were such that no operative could leave if they wanted to, Issac and Kyrah had to go against their colleagues and cause significant damage to the group, which Cinder still considers to be an act of grave betrayal.
However, it is eventually revealed that there was a different reason for him portraying the couple as villainous traitors. Cinder had been romantically attracted to Kyrah, and they had even gotten intimate a few times before she got together with Issac. When the man could not get Kyrah’s love and company anymore, he decided to punish her for choosing Issac, and this is why he faked their betrayal in order to convince the others to turn against the couple. In reality, it was the leader himself who had caused harm to the Shadow Force operatives and had blamed all of it on Issac and Kyrah.
While Issac and Kyrah had been considering leaving the group for quite some time, they finally took the plunge when the latter got pregnant and, therefore, had to escape. Despite getting away from Cinder and the group, though, the couple realized very quickly that their ex-employer would soon track them down and kill them for the betrayal. Therefore, Kyrah took the very difficult decision of splitting from her family and staying away from them after Ky’s birth, to ensure the baby’s and Issac’s safety. Issac was left to raise Ky by himself, while Kyrah planned on bringing down Shadow Force. This is why she is seen killing one of the operatives, Aloka, in the beginning, as she had lured them in by making it seem like Issac would be present in the hotel room. But when Issac got into the fight at the bank, and he was seen on the security camera footage, Cinder once again found a trace of him and also realized that the couple now had a son. Cinder believes that killing Ky will be the perfect way to take revenge against the couple who had betrayed him, and since Kyrah figures this out, she rushes to ensure her son’s safety and gets involved in the mess that follows.
Does Unc really betray the family?
As Issac and Kyrah reunite after some four years, they decide to no longer run and hide from their ex-employer but to track him down and kill him instead so that they can finally live freely with their son. In order to track the man down, Issac seeks help from two ex-operatives of Shadow Force, who are still known by their codenames, Unc and Auntie. In fact, Kyrah had taken the help of these retired operatives to find Issac as well, and the two are currently working for the American government, seemingly assisting in the investigation against Cinder. They take Issac to their safe house, which is apparently beyond the reach of the bad guys, but the protagonist and his son are soon abducted by masked men who break into the place.
Despite having worked with Auntie throughout their career and apparently being a very loyal helper, friend, and partner to her, Unc turns out to be a traitor, as he betrays her and Issac by informing Cinder of their location. It seems like Unc had recently switched sides and agreed to work for Cinder in exchange for a fat paycheck, and he had been keeping tabs on the locations of Issac and Kyrah all this while, waiting for the right moment to involve his boss. Now that Issac had also brought Ky along to the safe house, Unc made the call to ensure that Cinder got hold of the young boy along with the fugitive ex-assassin. Unc ultimately has to face the consequences of this betrayal, as Auntie tortures and interrogates him at the end of the film, and then seemingly kills him as well.
Is Jack Cinder finally dead?
There are several attempts on Jack Cinder’s life, the first being by Kyrah herself, after she pretends to return to make love with him and shoots him when he gets close to her. For the benefit of the plot, the expert assassin shoots Cinder all over his torso but never in the head, as the boss reveals that he had been wearing a bulletproof jacket, which saves his life. The next major twist comes when two of Cinder’s newly appointed henchmen turn out to be covert operatives working for the American government, possibly the CIA, who had been tasked with bringing him down.
When these men realize that Cinder is about to kill Issac and Kyrah, whom they want to protect for some odd reason, they reveal their true purpose and try to arrest the goon. However, their mission goes sideways when some of the old, trusted Shadow Force operatives choose to remain loyal to their boss, and a gunfight breaks out. Once Issac and Kyrah are back on their feet, they decide to chase after Cinder and bring an end to his terror once and for all, but like all spy thriller villains, the man avoids death so many times, and in such a ludicrous manner, that he seems immortal.
Finally, at the very end, Issac manages to shoot Cinder with the help of Kyrah when the villain takes his wife hostage. Issac executes an old trick used by him and Kyrah, in which he shoots Cinder through the shoulder of the woman, as this is an act that the man does not anticipate. Issac thankfully takes many more shots at Cinder after this, ensuring that he is indeed dead.
What does Issac removing his hearing aids signify?
Issac has a habit of removing his hearing aids in the most intense of situations. It seems like he is accustomed to taking the aids off while having serious thoughts or revisiting memories, along with in situations that pose a threat to himself or his family. While Issac, with his earplugs in, is somewhat limited in his capabilities and knows where to draw the line to differentiate between right and wrong, he is absolutely out of his mind whenever he takes off the earplugs. When Ky is in danger inside the bank, Issac removes the aids and goes into rampage mode, and he does the same at the end of the film, only to realize that he needs the hearing aids to understand what is going on. Shadow Force makes it seem like Issac removing the hearing aids is symbolic of him losing all shackles of morality and righteousness and subjecting his opponents to unfiltered violence. While working for the covert team, Issac had possibly gotten used to wearing different sorts of listening devices in order to communicate with his fellow soldiers, and now that he removes his earplugs, it also reminds him of how he has changed sides and is no longer serving Cinder but is working to protect his family.
Will there be a sequel?
In Shadow Force’s ending, Issac and Kyrah succeed in their plan of killing Cinder and living free lives with their son, Ty. Both of them take a break from living lives of danger and high-octane action, perhaps deciding to never get involved in such jobs ever again. They are seen leading very normal lives 6 months later, hosting birthday parties for Ky and making normal friends. However, Kyrah receives a call from Auntie at this time, who has now started working directly for the American government. Auntie reveals that she has been given the responsibility of establishing a new covert task force, which is being dubbed Shadow Force 2.0, and she wants both Kyrah and Issac on her team. Although Kyrah respectfully turns down the offer, stating that she wants a rest, at least for the time being, it is very possible that the couple will return in the future in a sequel to Shadow Force.
