VividSimon Simply Perfect

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

barry-jackson-878-708382 Am trying to figure out how "1000 true stories" became "Hyena Road"? Can somebody tell me the connection between the two please? Maybe there is some obscure book of this title out there some where that may not even be a war book . Paul Gross would probably be the best person to answer this question as he is listed as screen writer. But seriously I would welcome any discussion as above. The movie was very good as very few Canadian movies about the war have been produced. It is noted that most of the actors were Canadians and parts of the movie filmed in Manitoba on a military base. The rest was filmed in Jordan. Paul Gross sure had his hands full as he starred, produced and wrote the screenplay.

Justin Miller I know their were Canadians who did combat operations in Afghanistan, but unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to work with them. I absolutely know they would hate this movie though. They way the Soldiers were portrayed in such a cliché way, to the horrible one dimensional representations of the Afghans. All the great user reviews from the Canadians here, do yourselves a favor and go talk to one of your veterans...and not someone who worked in the TOC or someone who claims they are a war hero, go talk to an average grunt who went out on patrol everyday and saw action a handful of times because this is the fantasy type crap that creates s**t ideas of what war is like.

sam-102 Can tell a lot of effort went into production, and a sincere effort was made at authenticity...but still comes off as a movie that doesn't take itself very seriously, played by actors who take themselves perhaps too seriously. At times I wasn't entirely sure this wasn't a deliberately tongue-in-cheek drama with the aim of a little awkward comic relief; however, neither one works well as it is neither here nor there. Perhaps soap-opera-ish would be a good descriptor in terms of overall production value, not content per se'.The combat scenes, while not poorly acted or choreographed, still come off as a little bit staged. Sometimes it's just the little things, like uniforms not being quite dirty enough after soldiers were supposedly rolling around in the mountains for a few hours; sometimes the mountains look a little bit more like the Arizona Rockies than Afghanistan. Sometimes The Afghani villagers look a little bit too clean, well fed, and smooth-skinned to be actual Afghani villagers. The way the Taliban swarm en-masse, hail-mary style is just not how they tend to move tactically in the real world. Like I said, the little things. the sniper scope reticle they give us a peek through is, thankfully, not the usual nonsense with all sorts of colors and numbers and flashing lights, as is seen in some movies. it's not the standard Mil Dot reticle, but at least it's half believable.Ultimately, on a budget, just so much can really be put into production. overall, not a terrible movie, perhaps as an amateur military historian who's watched more than my fair share of combat helmet cams, I'm a bit more tuned in to the minutiae. So be it...overall, I'd give it a 7 for effort, and a 5 for final product, so at 6 I think is a fair score.

jdeureka One thing that makes "Hyena Road" excellent is that the film continues a cinematic and literary tradition of the Canadian ability to fight back, of intelligent opposition. In popular literature this goes back as far as Robert Service. In film it goes back to the (serious) Royal Mounties movies and to such Hollywood blockbusters as "The Wild North" (1952) and Stewart Grangers' character of Jules Vincent. Because Canada has become such an appendage to the USA in modern times we forget how outstanding the fighting ability of these people and their institutions can be. I do Not write this as a Canadian, mind you. But as an objective, non-Canadian who was very impressed by the combative intelligence and cross-cultural savvy of "Hyena Road". This is a sleeper. This is a keeper.