Sunray: Fallen Soldier
Directed by James Clarke & Daniel Shepherd
Written by James Clarke, Sam Seeley, and Daniel Shepherd
Starring Tip Cullen, Tom Leigh, Luke Solomon, and Steven Blades
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour and 55 minutes
Available on digital platforms and in select cinemas across the UK and North America from January 24th

by Cleo Tunningley, Staff Writer

When I was a kid, I remember growing obsessed with the jingoistic blockbusters Hollywood churned out every year. The ones with names like Lone Survivor or Act of Valor. They marched somberly through the cineplex, one DoD-approved schlockfest relieving the former of duty once the public grew tired of its patriotic thrills. It delighted me to no end when my English teacher taught us the word, propaganda. I know propaganda, I thought. Propaganda’s those movies with Mark Wahlberg.

James Clarke and Daniel Shepherd’s Sunray: Fallen Soldier makes no effort to hide that it’s pro-troop through and through. For Sunray, it’s a point of pride. The marketing for this movie boasts that it’s “WRITTEN BY AND STARRING FORMER ROYAL MARINES COMMANDOS.” Boy, is it ever!

Sunray follows Andy (Tip Cullen), a veteran of the Royal Marines who’s now biding his time working at a hardware store and avoiding his estranged family. Cullen gives the best performance in the film, utilizing his stoic yet expressive features and a voice that alternates between a boom and a whisper to convincingly embody the Haunted Veteran archetype. During both therapy sessions and brutal beatdowns, Cullen imbues Andy with melancholic rage. He drinks beer alone in the dark because that’s the kind of guy he is. Like many an on-screen veteran before him, Andy has obviously had trouble adjusting to civilian life. 

Before long, duty calls. Andy’s daughter, Rachel (Saskia Rose playing a role typically seen in anti-drug PSAs) overdoses on laced drugs after her nepo-baby, pusher boyfriend, Cash (Daniel Davids, also teleporting in from an anti-drug PSA) leaves her stranded at a party.

It’s up to Andy to get revenge. But of course, he can’t do it without the help of a few old friends. War buddies Sledge (Luke Solomon), Smudge (Tom Leigh), and Harper (Steven Blades) – all played by former Royal Marine Commandos to varying degrees of success – join Andy on his quest to punish those who killed his daughter. Together, they are seemingly invincible. The effect is less badass and more like watching a nationalistic child’s idea of a good action movie. The good guys should never miss a shot because they’re the good guys. It’s as though each of our main actors copied Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson’s infamous stipulations that they never lose a fight on screen.

Sunray strives more for authenticity than action innovation, impressive choreography, or bombast. The fact that Royal Marines wrote, directed, and acted in this movie is apparent; the creators and stars get a chance to show off their bona fides in the film’s many action sequences and war flashbacks. The authenticity of the military jargon that these vets bark and whisper at each other and the studied precision of their movements matter little when the final project comes out this undercooked. 

This would all be much less of a problem if the film had more to offer in the way of pulpy thrills. Fans of John Wick and its clones will note the presence of neon pink lighting, dark hallways, and abandoned warehouses. Sunray also indulges in another cliche of post-Wick action cinema: the unnervingly fluid long take. There are two of these flashy oners in Sunray. They’re a feeble attempt to drum up style. They feel like watching a friend try and fail repeatedly to retell a joke they once heard. 

It becomes even more apparent that this film is a product of the Royal Marines when it slows down a second and lets its heroes reminisce. The expression “shooting and crying” comes to mind. Atrocities of war aren’t complete until their executors get a chance to wax poetic about how sad it made them. There are not one but two instances – one shown, one only described – of wily, nefarious Afghans coercing these brave heroes into murdering women and children. It’s exculpatory in the way that well-made propaganda often is, vaguely racist, and communicates to the audience, “Isn’t it awful what they made us do?” Knowing that this film is the passion project of several Royal Marines reminds me of that old adage, something about how the victors always write history. They weren’t the victors in the Afghanistan War, but hey, they can always fix that in post. 

Sunray is interesting as a piece of propaganda because it fails to make its characters – these proud Royal Marine Commandos, on screen and off – into anything resembling sympathetic human beings. Its four commandos gleefully engage in sociopathic, vigilante justice – only pausing their quest for revenge briefly to consider whether or not it’s okay to kill a woman. No one is innocent until proven guilty in this macho fantasy. Nor are many tears shed during the Marines’ orgy of pent-up rage. The comically evil drug pushers in Sunray aren’t worth their energy.

By the time one of these Marines is bashing in a goon’s head with a sledgehammer, one is left wondering if perhaps they could have called Interpol instead. One character, late in the film, says, “I will not lose anymore sleep over the bodies of rotten souls,” a line that sounds like it was ripped straight from Rorschach’s diary. Like that comic book vigilante, these men act with impunity. In Sunray, the commandos’ intense training and combat experience lend them moral authority over the civilian world. After all, if these Royal Marines were competent enough to stamp out the Indian Rebellion, muffle those nasty Troubles, and back up the US of A in Afghanistan for two decades, then of course, they are surely competent enough to act as judge, jury, and executioner once they’re back on the streets in the UK, inconsolable and bored.

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