Navy SEALs Try to Prevent a DC Terror Attack in ‘One Shot’

Actor and martial arts expert Scott Adkins continues his quest to redefine action pictures in his latest movie “One Shot,” in which a Navy SEAL unit races against the clock and fights off a band of radical gunmen as they try to prevent a D.C. terror attack. The movie will be in theaters and available on demand on Nov. 5, 2021.

“One Shot” doesn’t just describe what’s at stake in the movie’s plot. Director James Nunn claims to have shot the movie in one continuous take, much like the 2015 Best Picture Oscar winner “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).” Of course, “Birdman” didn’t have helicopters, automatic weapons fire or close hand-to-hand combat. “One Shot” is arguably a far more difficult trick.

We’ve got the trailer for the movie. Obviously, every single trailer ever made chops up a film into tiny bits as editors try to convince us to leave the house to see the show. Still, these highlights suggest that the filmmakers have pulled off this difficult trick.

Adkins plays Navy SEAL Lt. Jake Harris. His team has been assigned to accompany CIA analyst Zoe Anderson (Ashley Greene, Alice from the “Twilight” movies) on a mission to a black site to collect accused terrorist Amin Mansur (Waleed Elgadi), a man who may hold the key to preventing a terror attack on Washington, D.C.

While they’re arguing with site manager Jack Yorke (Ryan Phillippe, “Shooter”) about whether they can take the prisoner, a group of Islamic terrorists storm the island to prevent Mansur from possibly sharing what he knows.

Of course, there are questions raised by this approach. How do you integrate a massive bomb explosion into your single-take movie? Also, there’s no faking tactical moves with this approach. Will the actors offer a reasonable facsimile of the real thing, or will the real-time moviemaking expose less-than-adequate training?

If you’ve seen Adkins’ other movies, you know the care that’s put into the fight scenes. They usually feature a lot of long takes that are shot from an angle that require the actors actually to execute their moves. Those fight scenes are what make the risks in “One Shot” potentially so exciting.

Adkins has played visible supporting roles in mainstream Hollywood movies like “Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “Doctor Strange” and “American Assassin,” but his best work has come as the star of martial arts and action movies. “Wolf Warrior,” “Accident Man,” “Avengement,” “Hard Target 2” and “Triple Threat” are just a few highlights from what’s been a stellar, if a bit under-the-radar, career so far. Adkins has a lead role as Killa in the upcoming “John Wick: Chapter 4,” so look for his star to rise in 2022.

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