The Shadow Strays (2024)

Finally relented and resubscribed to Netflix (temporarily) so that I can watch Timo's latest. The Shadow Strays feels like a logical progression from The Night Comes For Us and The Big 4, with a Highly Trained Professional vs. psychopathic gangsters plot that isn't original but does remember to develop its characters, through a succession of action sequences that escalate in scale and ambition throughout the course of the film.

The copious action brings the technical skill and visceral vision you'd expect, putting its young star and the supporting cast through an intense ordeal, soaked in blood and brutality. Things get damn savage.

Whilst the film could be described as dark it does soften the violence with some levity, mainly from its sometimes ludicrous villains and the gleefully extravagant moments of gore.

My only complaint is that the film is too long, though it can't be said it overstays its welcome or gets even slightly boring - indeed the time flew by faster than it has with a number of much shorter films I've watched recently. It's just that I am hoping that the era of 2h20m films is coming to an end because it is hard to find the time for them, and this could have been two great films instead!