The Old Guard (2020)

As a pandemic continues to wreck havoc across the United States and movie theaters remain clothes–and I probably wouldn’t go to one right now anyway even if they weren’t–new content may be hard to come by. But the streaming giants are still able to pop a new movie out once in a while, and sometimes we even get a good one.

Take Netflix’s The Old Guard. Based on a comic book series from Image Comics, the movie tells the story of a group of soldiers who, despite their best efforts, can’t die.

Charlize Theron leads the movie as “Andy,” the oldest of the a group of four soldiers who can’t die. She’s been around so long, even she doesn’t know how old she is. The other members of her group are Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), and Nicky (Luca Marinelli). For reasons even they can’t understand, the four of them cannot age or die. Any physical damage they receive will fairly quickly repair itself, and having centuries of experience both individually and collectively, they’re very good at what they do as mercenaries for hire.

However, Andy and the others agree to do something unprecedented: take a second job from someone, namely a former CIA agent named Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to rescue some hostages. The job does not go as planned as it becomes obvious that the secret existence these soldiers have enjoyed for most of their long lives is no longer possible. Someone knows about them, namely Copley’s current employer Merrick (Harry Meilling), the owner of a large pharmaceutical company that would love to find out what makes these people immortal. And if that weren’t enough, a young American Marine named Nile (Kiki Layne) has suddenly come back from a slit throat. With new enemies looking for them and a possible new ally to recruit, what will the “Old Guard” (no one calls them that in the movie) do, especially as Andy herself seems to be getting very disillusioned and tired of this life of violence?

As a movie, the action scenes were well-executed, and the story, based off a script written by the comic book’s writer Greg Rucka, shows essentially that immortality is much more a curse than a blessing. Truthfully, this may be the most melancholy action flick I’ve ever seen. Using Nile as an introductory character, the story allows Andy and Booker in particular to explain their situation and why it’s rather terrible. What happens when someone perhaps wants to die but can’t? The brightest aspects of the movie probably came from Joe and Nicky, two men who initially fought on opposite sides during the Crusades but have since fallen in love and are utterly devoted to each other. But really, having immortal soldiers going after various people almost seems unfair, but the Guard are quite adept at fighting and even with their fast healing, don’t go out of their way to get hurt either. Gunshots and the like are still painful.

The movie ends with a sequel hook, and I’d be fine seeing where this one goes next. The concept alone is fascinating even if the execution seemed so (often appropriately) maudlin.

Grade: B+