Shadow Company Essay

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Shadow Company, written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker, is an action-horror-thriller that primarily takes place in a small American town called Merit, 16 years after the Vietnam war ended. Our protagonist is Jake Pollard, a Vietnam vet and drifter who is barely scraping by and can’t even afford a grilled cheese at a diner. When Pollard discovers that 6 bodies that were found sealed in a Cambodian temple are being shipped back home he suddenly transforms into a man on a mission and for some reason he HAS to get to where these bodies are going. This is Pollard’s overall desire in the film. We as the audience are queued into the fact that this is a life or death situation for Pollard and we can quickly see the urgency and importance of the situation. The …show more content…

The soldiers interpret the town of Merit as their mission target and move in to destroy the town. Luckily, Pollard saves the day with the help of Kyle Trager, a classically angst fueled eighteen-year old whose dad supposedly died in Hanoi and who has a romance with Heather Stockton, a daughter of one of the dead Shadow Company soldiers. The story ends with lots of mayhem and action, which is where the script shines. The action is excellently written by Black, one of the best action writers around, and it is revealed that Pollard is the 7th member of shadow company and also Kyle’s father, which isn’t as surprising as it was meant to be. As a whole, the script tells a fun and original, yet slightly cheesy, action-horror-thriller. I personally think Black and Dekker do a good job of building the escalation and suspense in the first and second acts that builds into a really entertaining and exciting third. On top of this the dialogue and descriptions are quick, punchy and entertaining and classic of this type of movie. Black and Dekker especially excel

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