James Nunn’s “One Shot” is predicated on the most daunting of challenges for any action movie – presenting its entire, explosion-laden story full of hand-to-hand, knife-to-knife brawls and machine gun battles in a single, seamless shot.
That “One Shot” pulls that concept off as well as it does already cements it as a must-see for any action fan, so imagine how much greater a sense of drive and determination it takes to pull off “One More Shot” – a bigger, badder, more hard-hitting sequel.
It’s got the same concept in a new, much more expansive setting, with its leading man, Scott Adkins called upon to essentially never stop to take a breath until the end credits. As hard as that hypothetical scenario may seem to believe, here we go with“One More Shot”!
Trailer
Cast
Scott Adkins returns from “One Shot” as grizzled Navy SEAL Lieutenant Jake Harris, with Waleedi Elgaldi also returning as detainee Amin Mansur.
Michael Jai White also appears as the villainous mercenary Robert Jackson, with Aaron Toney and Edward Linard portraying his right-hand men Dunbar and Campbell.
Meena Rayann also plays Mansur’s wife Neisha, with Tom Benrenger playing Harris’ government superior Mike Marshall and Alexis Knapp portraying Harris’ mercenary associate Jennifer Lomax.
Plot
Picking up 12 hours after the ending of “One Shot”, Navy SEAL Jake Harris and his team arrive at the evacuated Baltimore International Airport with their detainee, suspected terrorist Amin Mansur, with just hours remaining before a dirty bomb partially facilitated by Mansur will detonate during the President’s State of the Union address.
Mansur is still embittered over his son’s death in an air raid on Turkey, which led to his tangential connection to terrorist activity, but the revelation by Harris that his estranged wife, Niesha is pregnant with his child is enough for Harris to convince Mansur to return to the U.S. with him.
Mansur is still reluctant to reveal the dirty bomb’s location, with Harris and his team hoping that Neisha can convince him to do so, but their mission is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a team of mercenaries pursuing Mansur for the bomb’s location.
With chaos erupting around him once more, Harris has no choice but to protect the Mansur couple while trying to uncover what the mercenary team wants with the bomb, all while the clock continues to click down to the bomb’s detonation.
Action
“One More Shot” Shifts the “One Shot” Scenario
“One More Shot” kicks off just as energetically as its 2021 predecessor, with about ten minutes of calm before its proverbial storm.
“One More Shot” also adds some more layers to its protagonists, most notably Jake Harris with his emotional phone call to his worried wife back home while he faces charges of mishandling the base attack in “One Shot”.
Amin Mansur is also more fleshed out in ways that add more sympathy and villainy to his backstory with his wife, Niesha along for the ride in the sequel.
With a greater understanding of what Harris has to lose and what Mansur already has lost, “One More Shot” shows both men at their most deeply humanized.
Indeed, the personal tragedy that lured Mansur into a quasi-terrorist life and the rage that’s consumed him ever since comes to the forefront more than ever in the third act of “One More Shot”, with Mansur coming closer than ever to letting go of the pacifism within him in his most powerful scene in either movie.
Bigger and Better!
“One More Shot” is all of the opinion that bigger means better for its single-take adventure gimmick, and its shift from a military black site to an airport setting is an excellent environmental escalation from “One Shot”.
While “One Shot” benefited from a claustrophobic feeling as Harris and his allies navigated offices and prison interrogation rooms in a relatively contained radius of action, “One More Shot” makes the one-shot battlefield much bigger and in some ways much more deadly.
With a much bigger playground to work with, director James Nunn puts Harris, Mansur, Niesha, and their allies through an even more harrowing battle in the airport’s underbelly, arrival and departure lounges, escalators, tarmac, and many other corners of the terminal where a spray of bullets or a knife-wielding enemy can spring up at a moment’s notice.
“One More Shot” is Full of Twists
Like “One Shot”, “One More Shot” knows how to keep the viewer guessing not just with when and where than next life-or-death action scene is going to unfold, but with the roles each character has to play in the conflict.
Robert Jackson’s team of American mercenaries are an unexpected set of adversaries for Harris and his team to face to stop a dirty bomb from destroying Washington D.C., but their interest in the bomb becomes gradually more clear and more insidious as the movie progresses.
That also means that who Harris can determine to be friend or foe becomes murkier as “One More Shot” progresses. Suffice it to say, the true mastermind behind the mercenary team’s mission to locate the bomb is sprung at just the right moment, and with a darker and far more, well, mercenary motivation than Mansur’s personal anguish.
“One More Shot” Surpasses its Action-Packed Predecessor!
If any ambiguity remains about how much of an action-packed blast “One More Shot” it, let it drop dead right here and now – “One More Shot” surpasses the standards set by its predecessor in every possible way!
The aforementioned airport setting helps “One More Shot” greatly in delivering an even harder-hitting ride, but what makes it even better is how even more relentless it is than the already aggressively paced “One Shot”, and how much it taxes every fiber of Harris’ mind, body, and spirit (and, no doubt, those of Scott Adkins, as well) to make it to the finish.
Being a military action film, “One More Shot” is full of bullets flying around every corner, but the sequel also steps up the hand-to-hand combat side of the equation considerably from its predecessor with an even greater abundance of knife fights and empty-hand brawls.
Scott Adkins vs. Michael Jai White
What’s perhaps even more impressive, in this regard, is that the latest Scott Adkins vs. Michael Jai White smackdown isn’t even the best of the film.
That’s not to say that Harris’ tarmac smackdown with Jackson doesn’t deliver the goods. With Scott and Mike being such seasoned lifelong martial artists, their close quarters battle is a whole new flavor of action from both them with the more Krav Maga-oriented style of fight choreography in the “One Shot” franchise (courtesy of returning fight choreographer Tim Man).
Michael Jai White’s role as Harris in “One More Shot” isn’t as prominent as you might expect, but the movie takes full advantage of the powerful presence he brings and his deft ability to keep Harris on his toes in their head-to-head match-up (keeping Jackson mostly at the beginning and end of “One More Shot” also works to the advantage of the movie’s finale, raising the stakes by pitting an exhausted and battered Harris against a very sharp Jackson at the top of his game).
Harris vs. Dunbar
However, the biggest action highlight of “One More Shot” is Harris’ rivalry with Jackson’s right-hand man Dunbar, whom Harris tangles with in not one, not two, but three individual fight sequences.
Even better is how individualized and creative each Harris vs. Dunbar smackdown is, ranging from unarmed, and weapons wielding fights in three different environments, including one of the movie’s stand-out action scenes aboard a speeding subway car.
It, of course, goes without saying that the titular cinematography gimmick of “One More Shot” makes them all stand-out that much more (and even gives Aaron Toney his arguable breakout role as Dunbar).
Chapter 3 of The “One Shot” Franchise already being Set up?
The cherry on top of the action bonanza that “One More Shot” delivers is its clear inversion of the ending of “One Shot”.
While “One Shot” planted the seeds for a theoretical sequel, “One More Shot” is thoroughly upfront that it is the middle chapter of a trilogy with the very clear sequel teasing in its closing minutes.
After a military base and an airport, it’s hard to imagine what the next setting could be for another 90 minutes of single-take, high stakes action that James Nunn has in store – a crowded freeway during rush hour and its surrounding rural setting? A crowded boat dock in Chesapeake Bay? A real go-for-broke DTV action movie wildcard with the battle to stop the bomb finally moving into Washington D.C. itself?
Where the next chapter of the “One Shot” franchise goes (the possible title of #OneLastShot is already gaining heavy traction on social media), “One More Shot” doesn’t close the curtain without letting viewers know that the dirty bomb is still out there – and the one-shot pursuit of it is already being mapped out in James Nunn’s mind!
Summary
Not even a month into 2024, James Nunn delivers an epic mic drop of an action film in “One More Shot” that already belongs on every list of 2024’s best action movies.
The budget and schedule for “One More Shot” may be a drop in the bucket compared to what the average “Fast & Furious” or “John Wick” movie has to work with, but Mr. Nunn is rapidly coming to be a force to be reckoned with among action movie filmmakers.
With 102 minutes of high-stakes, non-stop, and surprisingly emotional action, an always exhilarating Scott Adkins vs. Michael Jai White showdown, and Aaron Toney as 2024’s lead henchman to beat, “One More Shot” is both an electrifying action movie powerhouse and a middle chapter setting up one hell of a “One Shot” trilogy finale!
Favorite Quotes
- “Standard response time for the airport tact team is seven minutes max. It’s nine already, and I don’t hear any sirens, do you?” – Jake Harris (when Mansur asks when back-up will be arriving.)
- “Your husband put a dirty bomb in D.C. We’re ALL f***ing expendable!” – Jake Harris (when Niesha asks if he considers her and her husband “expendable” other than her husband’s information. Also, a nice, subtle nod to Scott Adkins’ role in 2012’s “The Expendables 2”!)
- “How many tours did it take for you to turn into a f***ing a**hole for hire?” – Jake Harris (to Robert Jackson.)
- “Five.” – Robert Jackson (in reply.)
Trivia
- “One More Shot” was filmed mainly in London Stansted Airport in 20 days.
- In an interview with the Action For Everyone podcast, James Nunn revealed that “One More Shot” was filmed between the hours of midnight and four a.m., as this was when there was little to no air traffic at London Stansted Airport, in order to maintain the façade that the airport had been completely evacuated (though the airport itself was still in operation during these hours).
- This also meant that, with “One More Shot” being filmed in 20 days, the entire movie’s shooting schedule adds up to just 80 hours!
- “One More Shot” is Scott Adkins’ fourth movie with director James Nunn, following on “Green Street 3: Never Back Down”, “Eliminators”, and “One Shot”.
- “One More Shot” features Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White’s fifth fight scene as opponents. This follows on from their two fight scenes in “Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing”, and their fights in “Metal Hurlant Chronicles” and “Accident Man”.
- Aaron Toney has worked extensively as both a stunt man and fight choreographer. Some of his other credits include “Bunraku”, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”, “Captain America: Civil War”, “Wolf Warrior 2”, “Black Panther” (doubling for the late Chadwick Boseman), “Avengers: Infinity War”, “Avengers: Endgame”, and “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”.
