HIDDEN STRIKE

Name: HIDDEN STRIKE
Item: HIDDEN STRIKE
Author: Cooper Dowd

"Some Obvious Charms"

Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

HIDDEN STRIKE is an action thriller on Netflix. Two veterans, one American and one Chinese, stop a massive oil heist in Iraq. John Cena plays Chris, a former Marine helping an Iraqi orphanage. His concerns are the orphanage’s failing water well and his brother, also a former soldier, who’s badgering him to do one last mission. Chris learns his brother’s boss, Owen, has kidnapped five civilians from a local Chinese company’s oil refinery. Chris walks away and decides to work with Jackie Chan’s former special ops soldier, who’s trying to rescue the kidnapped workers. They must stop Owen from stealing the oil.

The story’s details in HIDDEN STRIKE are a little confusing at first. However, the banter and action scenes involving John Cena and Jackie Chan’s characters are fun, humorous and exciting. Also, the basic story is morally uplifting. For example, the heroes are stopping unscrupulous oil thieves. Also, the American hero protects an orphanage, and the Chinese hero wants to reconcile with his estranged adult daughter. However, HIDDEN STRIKE has nearly 20 obscenities and profanities and brief lewd dialogue in two scenes.

Content:

(BB, LL, VV, S, M)

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview where two veterans, an American ex Marine and a Chinese owner of a private security firm, team up to stop a man trying to steal oil from a closed oil refinery in Iraq run by a Chinese company, the heroes are also trying to rescue people kidnapped by the villain, the American hero is protecting an Iraqi orphanage, and the former Chinese special ops soldier is trying to reconcile with his estranged adult daughter

Foul Language:

17 obscenities (five during end credit scenes of outtakes), one Jesus profanity and one GD profanity

Violence:

Lots of strong action violence includes gunfights, hand-to-hand combat, comical action scenes involving objects and precarious situations, soldiers shot and hit by shrapnel, explosions, grenades tossed around, villain executes American hero’s younger brother and three civilian prisoners, and many near escapes

Sex:

Verbal reference to sexually-transmitted diseases, a man briefly discusses a woman’s “booty” while not knowing the man he’s talking to is the woman’s estranged father, and man discusses her rear-end again in a more crude way during an outtake running during the end credits

Nudity:

No nudity

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Movie avoids discussing the political implications of a Chinese oil company, which is probably connected to the Chinese Communist Party, running an oil refinery in Iraq, plus some side characters are Arab and are probably Muslim but it’s never mentioned.

More Detail:

HIDDEN STRIKE, an action thriller on Netflix, depicts two veterans, one a former Marine protecting an orphanage in Iraq and one a former Chinese special ops soldier trying to rescue people at a Chinese company’s oil refinery, who team up to stop a massive oil heist. The banter and action scenes involving the two ex-soldiers, played by John Cena and Jackie Chan, are fun, humorous and exciting, and the movie’s basic story is morally uplifting, but HIDDEN STRIKE has nearly 20 obscenities and profanities, brief lewd dialogue and a light pro-Chinese political perspective that warrant extreme caution.

The movie opens with the former Chinese special ops soldier, “Dragon” Luo Feng, leading a group of soldiers to rescue Chinese workers at the large oil refinery. The workers are under attack from some mercenaries, so Luo and his men have come to transfer them to a safe “Green Zone.” One of the Chinese oil company’s workers is Luo’s estranged daughter, Mei.

Meanwhile, Chris Van Horne, the former Marine, is guarding a local Iraqi orphanage, but the equipment running their water well has stopped working. A man named Owen Paddock offers to get new equipment for $100,000. So, Chris reluctantly accepts an offer from his mercenary brother, Henry, to help attack one of Luo’s two convoys driving the Chinese workers to the Green Zone.

However, Chris finds out that Owen is behind the mercenary attack on the convoy. He also finds out that, during the attack, Owen kidnapped five of the Chinese workers, including the female

scientist who has the codes to operate the oil refinery. Owen and his group of mercenaries plan to reactivate the refinery and steal its refined oil.

Chris confronts Henry and Owen, then leaves when he hears about their plan. However, after he leaves, Owen kills Henry for failing to take out Luo during the attack.

Luo tracks down Chris at the orphanage. After some misunderstanding, Chris agrees to help Luo retrieve the kidnapped people and stop Owe from stealing the refined oil.

The story is a little confusing in the beginning, but HIDDEN STRIKE is humorous and exciting. For example, it has some of the trademark comic action that Jackie Chan is known for in his movies. As Chris, John Cena gets in on some of that comedy, which helps the movie overcome the story’s generic plot formulas.

HIDDEN STRIKE has a morally uplifting worldview. For example, the two heroes are trying to stop some oil thieves. Also, the American hero is helping an orphanage, and the Chinese hero is hoping to reconcile with his daughter.

That said, HIDDEN STRIKE has nearly 20 obscenities and two strong profanities. Five of the obscenities occur during some outtake scenes during the end credits. Also, during the story, Chris makes a comment about the “booty” of Luo’s daughter, not knowing that she’s Luo’s daughter. During the end credits, one of the outtakes shows Chris making an even more lewd comment about the woman’s rear end. Finally, HIDDEN STRIKE ignores the politics of a Chinese oil company drilling for oil and refining it in Iraq. In one scene, the villain accuses the Chinese company of stealing the oil too, but Luo’s daughter tells him the company actually buys the oil. Of course, the Chinese Communist government controls the country’s oil companies to a great extent. It’s heavily involved in China’s overseas business endeavors.

So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for HIDDEN STRIKE, despite its positive qualities.

Watch HIDDEN STRIKE →

Quality:

- Content: -2