60
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- The Kill Team serves an essential function by illustrating in agonizing detail not only how easily morality can be subjugated to hate, but how important it is for people of conscience to do the right thing. It’s deeply uncomfortable viewing at times, but it’s no less necessary a story to experience.
- 70TheWrapMonica CastilloTheWrapMonica Castillo“The Kill Team” is both a tense moral thriller and a disheartening account of our country’s actions abroad.
- 70VarietyNick SchagerVarietyNick SchagerThose familiar with this story won’t find any novel twists here, but Krauss astutely conveys the literal and moral quagmires produced by such military situations.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckDespite superb performances by Nat Wolff as a conflicted young soldier and particularly Alexander Skarsgard as a sociopathic platoon leader, the picture proves only sporadically compelling.
- 63Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreThe big and small screens have been awash in military features and documentaries since 9/11, and there’s not a lot to The Kill Team that qualifies as new or surprising. But a decent level of suspense and the genuine dread Skarsgård casts, like a shadow, inform it and make it stand out in a genre that may not outlive America’s endless military involvement in that corner of the world.
- 63Slant MagazinePat BrownSlant MagazinePat BrownDespite glimpses of a larger critique of the American project in Afghanistan, it lets us escape from the horrors of war before it finishes demolishing the illusion of a clean one.
- 60Screen DailyStephen WhittyScreen DailyStephen WhittyAt its core, The Kill Team has one great performance, and some important things to say – about the dangerous appeal of the strong, and the easy malleability of the young. It’s well worth watching, and thinking on. It’s just a shame that that great performance isn’t matched by all the others – and that what the film has to say is said in such a dutifully by-the-book way.
- 58The A.V. ClubRoxana HadadiThe A.V. ClubRoxana HadadiIts depiction of toxic masculinity and bloodthirstiness within the U.S. Army is blunted by an overly passive lead performance and a lack of specificity in its storytelling.
- 50Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshLos Angeles TimesKatie WalshKrauss digs into the murky, uneasy morality of wartime, but The Kill Team doesn’t quite convey the brutality of these crimes with the same power that news accounts or even Krauss’ own documentary have.