Best movie of this year hands down!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

An action-packed slog

A WAR is a Danish war drama exploring the relationships between men on the battlefield and the consequences of high-intensity combat. It boasts a starring role for the engaging actor Pilou Asbaek, best known to international audiences for his roles in A HIJACKING and GAME OF THRONES. The film begins with the usual Afghan conflict scenes that will be familiar to anyone who's ever seen a Middle Eastern-set war film or watched the news for the last two decades. Two thirds of the way in it turns into a courtroom drama. It's not the most exciting of films I've watched, being glacially-paced for most of the time, but it does have depth and important things to say about the nature of international law and the effect of war on the minds of ordinary men.

This is an up-close look into the world of warfare and the decisions that Commanders must make on a daily basis. Sometimes circumstances require such quick decisions that they may be seen as questionable, nay criminal, by those who have never held a gun or worked a stressful job in their lives (the prosecution), but thank God there are men brave enough to go into the darkest places of the world, leaving behind the ones they love, often for months or years at a time and even questioning why they are there, to keep evil from coming to our shores. It's a shame that, at the same time, there are such power-hungry people who will go to great lengths to destroy these courageous men for the sake of making their own careers.This movie is a stark look into that world.The only problem is that Tuva Novotny seems to be the sole Danish actress. She turns up in every movie coming from that country these days, and frankly, as good of an actress as she is, it's getting old.

It's easy as an American, with our American-centric media, to think of military conflicts like those taking place in Afghanistan as essentially American conflicts. It's interesting, therefore, to see films that explore those conflicts through the perspectives of other countries fighting the same fight we are.Documentaries and fictional films I've seen that have the war on terror as their subject, "A War" included, remind me of the films I've seen about Vietnam. A bunch of soldiers wandering around, not sure of what their assignments are or who's giving the orders, living in a constant high-key state of extreme anxiety that any moment might be the moment where they or a friend die. Whatever the conflict's origin, the purpose seems to gradually be obscured by the sheer monotony and bureaucratic confusion of the whole thing, important decisions being made by men in offices miles away from where the actual fighting is taking place."A War" establishes this environment, and then asks us as viewers how well we would do at making critical decisions if we were in the same situation. The commander at the film's focus is put on trial, and from a purely legal standpoint should probably have been found guilty. He certainly lies in an attempt to gain an acquittal. But I for one didn't want him to be found guilty and didn't blame him for lying or a member of his unit for lying for him. The film asks of us what wars since the beginning of time have been asking of those who are forced to fight them: measure the value of one human life against that of another. It's an impossible position to be put in, one that has no good outcome, and one that is destined to haunt the person who has to make the decision for the rest of his life, no matter what he ultimately decides."A War" brought Denmark an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2015 Oscars.Grade: A-

A War (Krigen) is a realistic drama about a Danish commander in Afghanistan, his unit, and his family back home, focusing on several key decisions that the commander must make, both in Afghanistan and back home in Denmark. Using naturalistic lighting, unobtrusive straight cuts, and a mix of stationary camera and hand-held, A War examines the moral complexities of asymmetric warfare and military justice. There are no easy answers, but there are spectacular natural performances from all of its cast. The sum total of these parts is an engrossing and seamless minimalistic movie, and another success from Tobias Lindholm. The Oscar nomination for A War is well-merited.