‘The Kill Team’ Film Review: Nat Wolff’s Soldier Has a Crisis of Conscience in Afghanistan
Andrew Briggman (Nat Wolff) is ready to go into the army. In his spare time, the young man works out and moves around his room as if avoiding enemy fire. He’s still boyish in these moments — hitting his head on a toy basketball hoop in his room and using his skateboard as a stand-in rifle. He thinks he’s ready for war and to follow in his father’s footsteps into service. However, Dan Krauss’ sobering drama “The Kill Team” shows that there’s nothing to prepare a young soldier for when your commander leads you and your brothers-in-arms astray.
That sense of Andrew’s promising energy fades quickly once the story shifts to Afghanistan in 2009. The cinematography (by Stéphane Fontaine, “Jackie”) imagines a color-drained horizon, a place where everything is dusty and the brightest pop of color is the overhanging pale sky. The War on Terror is still claiming lives on both sides, and the movie quickly establishes how bleak and sketchy the frontlines remain when Andrew’s squad loses their leader on the way to give local children candy.