Allegiance

Writer/director Michael Connors creates a good sense of atmosphere and clearly knows his way around the military milieu, but never manages instill the film with a much-needed sense of dramatic tension despite a solid enough story structure.

The film boasts an insistent and unquestioning patriotism. What begins as a drama devolves by the halfway point into an overly long chase film, which only grows more and more boring.

The picture's assorted characters, though credible, feel wearisomely one-dimensional, while the pumped-up action, unfolding in a single day, basically consists of an extended game of hide-and-seek.

Without its topical pretext and overzealous patriotism, Allegiance would be just another generic action film.

This well-acted debut feature from Michael Connors (a former Army captain) is too limited in ambition and scope to satisfy our expectations.

Michael Connors does a fine job of not passing judgment on his characters, yet his depiction of his main character's dilemma is about the only thing he handles correctly.

What, exactly, is the payoff for suffering through such painfully bad filmmaking for 93 minutes? Forget about getting "A Few Good Men"–style military melodramatics; this movie quickly proves that even a few good performances, lines of dialogue or music cues are a pipe dream. Your loyalty will not be rewarded.