One only has so many 90-minute periods to spare in a lifetime, so I was quite surprised to find myself coming back to "The Objective" for a second time; and all the more so given that this is a somewhat "uneventful" film that teases, contentwise, as much as it rewards. But the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan are renowned for being inhospitable and deadly for those from outside who come there, be they Victorian British or American Special Forces operatives of our times. Indeed, as this film reminds us, Alexander the Great and the Soviets also got bloody noses here. While the makers themselves steered clear of Afghanistan, they managed to find locations in Morocco that look mercilessly authentic enough, and for me this is a huge plus of the film. The acting is fully satisfactory, in its quiet way, and so in some real sense we feel we might be accompanying real GIs, plus their Australian Special Forces buddy, and our CIA hero from Canada, into increasingly chilling and disorientating territory. And somehow it works - this is indeed an unsettling, effective and even somehow meaningful film, which hovers pleasingly somewhere between one genre and another, and also ends in a decisively significant way...

After watching this movie last night, I made a point to remind myself to look up the next day... just what it was that I watched.After reading the reviews on here (a couple were a huge help, helping me understand some of the middle east lore), I realized that I felt similar to a majority of the other reviews on here. I started watching it because the setting and tag line interested me. I was very into the story through almost the entire movie. But, without having that background in some of the history and mythology of the area, I was left scratching my head at the end. This movie had a lot of promise, and for the most part delivered on that. The setting, cinematography, and acting were all pretty good. The special effects were... not the best, but okay. But the story really kind of dropped the ball in the final act. Worth a watch, but be ready to come away feeling unfulfilled if you don't know much about middle eastern lore and mythology. Be ready to do some reading up to answer any lingering questions, because the movie will not answer them for you.

Friends ask me this question fairly frequently - especially now that the movie's been back on Netflix. I thought I'd post my analysis, which, for what it's worth, has satisfied most of them... (My background is in Eastern philosophy and mythology, which this movie is primarily about and why I'm asked this question.)(1) The Background (2) The AnalysisFirst question is usually, "What are those balls of fire? Ufos, ghosts, souls?" Short answer is: none of the above. Or at least, not specifically. In order to answer this question, it's necessary to understand what "a Vimana" is and how they function in Indian religion and mythology. (1)Vimanas are, in short, "chariots of the gods." They are typically depicted as peaked royal palanquins or stupas (peaked temples), hence their visual representation as triangles. But they are also occasionally birds, as in the case of Vishnu's mount Garuda, or winged structures.In Hindu mythology, existence consists of seven higher and seven lower heavens or planes of existence. When Indra, leader of the Devas (a group of lesser gods) wants to visit earth he - you guessed it - jumps in to his Vimana and shoots down to our plane of existence. Running through all planes of existence is an endless pillar of fire, lingodbhava-murti, the primal form of Shiva, the creator (that later also includes Vishnu at the bottom and, generally, Brahma at the top). While the pillar is endless in Hinduism, in Buddhism the top of the pillar ends at Brahma until Buddha (or anyone) achieves enlightenment, at which point it becomes endless. The top of the "Brahma pillar" is a triangular structure with Brahma's three faces representing dominion, or arbitration, over the past, present and future (he looks in to or "sees" all-time). The lingodbhava-murti, then, is both endless (spaceless) and timeless or "out of time."But what does all of this have to do with the movie?(2)So, Keynes and his team are off searching for Vimanas in the desert. And they find them: the arrival of Vimanas signified by helicopter sounds ("birds" - see above), triangular structures, and the small metal airplane (a chariot with wings). But why is the metal airplane first discarded in the dirt by the oasis and later clutched in Keynes' hand at the end?Specifically, Keynes achieves a form of enlightenment as indicated by the touch on his forehead at his third eye (a common association), his levitation (another common trope), his "open eyes" in the medical suite, and his entrance into - or acceptance by - the Vimana. At this point he has moved outside of our specific plane and is traveling throughout existence. He too "sees all."There are also, I believe, references to quantum mechanics and string or multiverse theory at this point - specifically with regards to the flares. Waveform collapse, in quantum mechanics, refers to when an infinite number of possibilities, or potentialities, collapse (mathematically) in to a decision point or "singularity." (Interestingly, both waveforms and strings are often described as "vibrating" and waves - after all - DO vibrate; another sly association, I think, with his vibrating hand.) In certain forms of multiverse theory these decision points do not cancel out other potentialities (as in QM) but birth additional universes in which they did occur: a universe in which you went left instead of right, called your mother back instead of ignored her, liked peanut butter instead of hating it, etc, ad infinitum.The flares, then, are all from Keynes. As Keynes begins to "enter" the Vimana and transcend - or move out of - fixed existence he/we begin to see his entire waveform - if you will - or his mutiverse of singularities. We see flares that he might have sent up or did in another space/time-line... past, present and future. Simultaneously. There are also reasons to believe that his wife is actually dead during the timeline we observe in the film (from earlier dialogue, his weeping over his wife's picture, references to why he took the mission in the first place knowing it was suicidal (nothing to live for)). Yet she's alive at the end credits giving an interview? And the plane is both in his hand and back at the oasis... Notice, too, that the final ascentional montage contains formulas from Einstein's relativity theorem (on Space-Time) and what appears to be the head of Brahma, among other symbology. Neat!Finally, why is Keynes apparently "saved" or "enlightened" when everyone else gets blown away? On somewhat shaky ground here, but I think, possibly, that he is meant to be seen as at least seeking enlightenment, attempting to "see farther," while the rest of the group do not. This evidenced, mainly, by his camera... Of the large, monocular variety, as you recall: literally "a third eye." The only other group member to individually see the other "travelers" dies after having seen them through his BINOCULAR night vision goggles (and killing the guardian/ascetic/enlightened old guy).As far as production goes, I agree with most other reviewers: it certainly could have benefited from a larger budget. But it worked for me and I'm a fan of deliberate, well-done low-budget sci-fi (as well as the other kind).If you'd like more of this, I recommend Shane Carruth's two fantastic movies: "Primer" and "Upstream Color." Also can't say enough about "Valhalla Rising," another great "film of ideas." Bone up on your Dante, Apocrypha (Dismas/The Harrowing of Hell) and Norse mythology to enjoy that one though... But if you do, it's fantastic.For what it's worth, I have no connection whatsoever to anyone involved in the production of these films...Best, Chris.

Considering TO was made by the same putz (Myrick) who gave us "The Blair Witch Project" (which then started an crapalavalanche of awful hand-held-camera horror turds), it's miraculous that this movie is this solid. Never dull, in spite of its fairly slow pace, it offers an extremely vague ending which can be only called that – an "ending" – because it ends the movie, and not because it's any kind of viable conclusion of the story.Vague endings are a two-edged sword. On one hand, a vague ending can be thought-provoking hence interesting, something to muse over after the movie's finished. But for this to be the case, it has to be a QUALITY vague ending, not just any old run-of-the-mill vague ending, hitting the fine line between total confusion and blatant obviousness. (If you're getting sick of the word "vague", so am I. I will not use it anymore.) On the other hand, if an ending is too v****, it might be too frustrating, as it might not even hint at what the hell just went on. It is abundantly clear – especially given this director's track-record of setting up mysteries but having no clue how to end them – that if you asked Myrick to explain to you what the conclusion is really about, he wouldn't have any clue whatsoever. Hence, in a sense TO is a like a cheap magic trick. It looks good but there is nothing "deep" or "layered" behind it. It's a scam.One reviewer, who must be an incurable optimist, offers the ridiculous theory that the movie is about Djinns. The word "djinn" wasn't mentioned once, nor were lamp-derivated apparitions even hinted at, at any point in the movie, so this guy basically pulled that theory straight out of his behind. Yet he totally forgot to even mention – let alone explain – Keynes's last line, the movie's key line, "they will save us all", and how that could possibly relate to (the evil) Djinns. The Djinns will save us all? Don't they first have to ask Aladdin for permission? Perhaps Aladdin is Bin Laden; I can certainly see the similarity: Al-Laden, Bin-Laden. Myrick would be laughing, if he ever heard that theory. Besides, just picture the CIA HQ giving these orders to Keynes: "We are sending you on a top-secret mission to Afghanistan, where you will find out as much about Djinns as you can. Remember Aladdin's little friend? That's who we're looking for. And make sure to find Aladdin too. He might help us fight the Taliban, who knows what secret weapons he possesses. It would be AMAZING if we could wipe out entire armies by a simple rub of a lamp." "They will save us all". It's a neat little mega-mysterious, intriguing line to give the main character before the end-credits roll, but it means absolutely nothing. If these Djinns/aliens/leprechauns/whatever were around as far back as at the time of Alexander the Great, then why haven't they "saved us" by now? God knows a few thousand years should be more than enough for an advanced race of Djinns/aliens/leprechauns/whatevers to save anyone. And the mere notion that an advanced race of beings, good or evil, would actually decide to lounge around in the ugly, deserted, depressing rocky plains of Afghanistan for thousands of years, makes me snicker. Absurd. Wouldn't they rather settle in Florida or on the sandy beaches of Australia? "They will save us all" is sort of like Myrick's attempt to match "My God, it's full of stars", the last line uttered in Kubrick's "2001". In fact, the last few minutes of TO definitely evoke memories of that movie, and I am convinced that Myrick imitated it, whether consciously or not.Another reviewer here complains that the soldiers weren't nearly as interesting as those in "Aliens". Yes, I agree: Cameron's soldiers were action-movie buffoons, clowning around and behaving like little children half the time - hence "interesting". Myrick tried not to let this become yet another overly goofy representation of the military, tried to keep it half-way realistic, which is a good thing. Cameron can keep his silly soldiers, his stupid blue morons, and his ship-sinking lesbian love-stories (coz Di Caprio looks like a girl, see).The one thing that did annoy me greatly was Jonas Ball (Keynes) and his damn incessant mumbling. Perhaps he figured, if it worked for Brando it will work for me too. (God knows WHY it worked for Brando. More likely, Brando made it in spite of his mumbling, not because of it.) Worse yet, Myrick not only gave this chronic mumbler the main role, but narration duties too. Suffice it to say that I didn't understand whole chunks that this guy was spewing through his barely open mouth, especially during the narration, which meant I had to look at the subtitles, like some ESL schluck, in order to follow parts of the movie. His enunciation makes him come off as a tired slacker, too lazy to speak, not like a seasoned soldier working for the CIA. That isn't the voice or speaking manner of a determined, disciplined, and focused man; that's the voice of a wimp sheepishly describing why his socks are too tight.