'The Wall', in simple terms, is a nail biter. A three man film, two Americans snipers and the disembodied voice of an Iraqi 'juba' or marksman.
Director Doug Liman has a steady hand in overseeing the camera in close ups, long shots, and using the windy, an arid stretch of Iraq desert.
Dwain Worell has cleverly written a script that conveys a situation that conveys tight wound up spring of anxiety and tension on a battle field.
A wonderful Aaron-Johnson is Isaac, who has signed up for yet another tour in Iraq, to expiate his guilt for a fallen comrade that his bullet killed; John Cena, Shane offers a moment of humor in a serious shootout with a wily sniper who has already killed a team of workers laying pipe to convey Iraq's oil for export.
And then there is the Iraqi who unseen, in a game of killing the snipers.
Shane is quickly put out of action early on. And here the drama builds up as Isaac wounded, behind a crumbling wall, with a thirst and hunger, hit in the knee he cannot staunch loss of blood. 'The Wall's' psychological development take the high ground as the Iraqi psyches Isaac out. He's well educated and taunts a poorly educated Isaac, to the point of reciting Edgar Allan Poe, a macabre detail.
Isaac manages to contact headquarters for medical evacuation, only to discover the Iraqi knows his name and has been in radio contact with it, to his bitter frustration. Meanwhile as the conversation between the two continue, Isaac finally locates where the Iraqi is hidden. He pushes the shaky wall until it collapse, then shots, as two Medevac helicopters come to rescue him and recover Shane's body.
And as they lift off the ground, shots ring out, causing the machines and crew and Isaac to crash and be killed. And the sniper lives to kill another day.
The Iraqi, a school teacher whose school was destroyed when the Americans invaded Iraq. The killing of innocent lives has pushed this educator to take to the Iraqi underground resistance to the invader (and yet we cannot be sure his doing this out of attachment to Islam). And the eternal quest he asks Isaac why he was in Iraq and why he has returned? He even tells him that the war is over, a rather paramount judgment.
Over all, 'The Wall' may be seen as a testament to an invasion that has gone wrong, and an even handed understanding of why the Iraqis opposed the American invasion.
