As American filmmakers have struggled, and largely failed, to tell stories about the ongoing wars in the Middle East, they've ignored rich cinematic material in other wars, in other countries. Not Renny Harlin! The filmmaker known for schlocky 90s action movies like Cliffhanger and Deep Blue Sea is turning his attention to the conflict between Russia and neighboring nation Georgia, a conflict that turned into outright war in 2008 and continues to seethe to this day.
Harlin didn't give Variety too many details about the film he's planning, other than saying he's shooting on a small budget and will be filming near the area where the armed conflict occurred. "When I got this script two weeks ago, it was exactly what I had been looking for, a great human story, with tragic, serious overtones. I saw it as my opportunity to use my experience in action films to tell the story of a complex conflict that is impartial but makes a strong antiwar statement."
There's more information about Harlin and his career, as well as the Russia-Georgia conflict, in the Variety piece. The idea of a war movie about an underreported conflict, coming from a guy with experience making action movies, sounds fantastic.
