The Big Picture

Murder Company
is a straightforward WWII action film with a narrow audience appeal, focusing on a small group of US soldiers on a secret mission.
Despite a lower budget, the film features excellent visual effects and accurate period aesthetics, with a strong ensemble cast led by William Moseley and Gilles Marini.
While not groundbreaking,
Murder Company
is a worthwhile addition to the WWII film genre, offering enjoyable performances and a heartening story of heroism and brotherhood.

Described as an untold story about true heroes, Shane Dax Taylor’s WWII actioner Murder Company is a fairly straightforward war film. Where The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was a bombastic ass-kicker based on true events and infused with anarchism for entertainment purposes, Murder Company sticks with the familiar and rarely strays too far from the expected narrative choices. Of course, there is safety in this choice, as Taylor manages to deliver a remarkably serviceable film, though it casts a rather narrow net on its audience. Unless you’re already eager to spend eighty-six minutes immersed in the brutal, bloody horrors of warfare, there’s not much else to lure you in. Of course, if you’re looking for a healthy dose of Nazi-killing, in this case, Murder Company has the market cornered.

As with most historically-set films, Murder Company opens with three intertitles that provide a brief overview of the impending story, including the fact that this top-secret mission has never been officially acknowledged, nor are there any records that the titular “Murder Company” ever existed. They could have spared a card and simply said: historians look away, we’re inventing history to deliver an enjoyable war movie. These intertitles do a decent job of setting up what lies ahead, as the film centers around a small band of US soldiers who are sent behind enemy lines to rescue a member of the French Resistance and assassinate an elite Nazi target.

Despite being a lower-budget action film, Murder Company does have excellent visual effects, and the production has put some effort into accurately capturing the aesthetics of the time period, though it would take willful ignorance to botch the costumery of WWII. The film does make one bewildering decision: the Nazis speak with broken German dialogue, not broken English dialogue. When they’re begging for their lives in English, there isn’t a mistake to be found, but when they’re speaking German, the dialogue is stilted and juvenile. As the actors are German, it seems this may have been a weak spot in Jesse Mittelstadt’s script. Roman Schomburg makes it work, especially as no one expects depth or nuance from Nazi cannon fodder.

Murder Company (2024) A World War II covert operation unfolds as a group of Allied operatives is tasked with infiltrating a Nazi stronghold to gather vital intelligence. Facing relentless enemy forces and navigating treacherous terrain, the team must overcome numerous obstacles and internal conflicts.Release Date July 5, 2024 Director Shane Dax Taylor Runtime 0 Minutes Main Genre War Writers Jesse Mittelstadt Studio(s) Maverick Film , Complex Corp Expand

‘Murder Company’ Assembles a Strong Ensemble Cast

Following the trend of its action predecessors, Murder Company has a household name, Kelsey Grammer (Frasier), attached to deliver star-power to its roster, but the film’s true strength lies within the ensemble that fills the ranks of the “Murder Company.” Grammer’s General Haskel is an indomitable force when he’s on the screen, though he’s far from a major player in the film. His most notable scenes see him forcing information out of injured enemies, and hand-waving the loss of his own soldiers.

Since The Chronicles of Narnia nearly two decades ago, William Moseley has established a decent resume for himself, including a leading role in the hit soap opera The Royals. With the role of Southern in Murder Company, Moseley trades lions, witches, and wardrobes for taking down Nazis and stepping up to lead when the opportunity arises. Where his recent Raven’s Nest failed to give Moseley a suitable enough script to work with, Murder Company serves him quite well. But the script ultimately works because of the chemistry of the cast. There’s a palpable camaraderie shared between Southern (Moseley), Smith (JoeAnderson), and Coolidge (Pooch Hall). The soldiers banter about baseball, moon over the sweethearts they left behind, and butt heads over how they should pull off their mission. With a neat runtime of only eighty-six minutes, Murder Company doesn’t have a lot of time to flesh out its characters, so it relies upon these little moments of humanity and connection to make the inevitable fallout even more tragic. Ultimately, the characters are quite paper-thin, but it’s not necessarily to the detriment of the story being told.

While one might think the band of brothers would draw the most focus, it’s actually the French Resistance officer, Daquin (Gilles Marini), who is recruited about a quarter of the way into the film, who proves to be the most compelling character in the lot. Daquin has the fewest lines, and yet, when he speaks, you listen. Marini, a French actor who has made a name for himself in American productions like Sex and the City, Daredevil, and Days of Our Lives, is undoubtedly the standout in this ensemble cast. He manages to bring a tremendous amount of depth to the role, despite being mostly relegated to sharpshooting and brooding over the tragedies in his life.

Is ‘Murder Company’ Worth Watching?

Murder Company may not be the next Saving Private Ryan, but it is a solid addition to the increasingly long list of WWII-set films and television series hitting our screens in recent years. The script may have weak points toward the middle and final acts, but it doesn’t lessen the enjoyment value whatsoever. Taylor set out to create a film that paid homage to the great war epics that preceded it, while playing within his own corner of fictitious history, and it works. While diehard WWII buffs might squabble over some of the choices that are made throughout the film, they will still come out the other end heartened by the story of heroism, bravery, and brotherhood that has been crafted here.

It may not reinvent the wheel or bring anything new to the landscape of WWII films, but Murder Company does add two wonderful performances to the resumes of Moseley and Marini, which are worth the price of admission in their own right. Moviemaking is a lot of hard work, especially filming on location in places like Bulgaria, where this was filmed. This shoot was one that required a significant portion of its production to be shot outdoors in all-terrain and all-weather, and yet, you can still feel how much fun the cast had making this, as it shines through their performances. For a lower-budget actioner, Murder Company is absolutely worth its eighty-six-minute runtime.

REVIEW Murder Company (2024) Murder Company is a movie that is exactly what you’d expect with a bit of a shaky story, but it delivers on all that it needs to.ProsMurder Company boasts an excellent ensemble cast, which is where its primary strengths lay.For a lower-budget film, the VFX and production design are quite well-done, and suited to the style of film. ConsThe film takes liberties with history that is already filled with unbelievable true stories that it could have played with instead.The script feels a bit weak toward the middle and final act, though it does stick its landing to an extent.

Murder Company is in select theaters, on digital, and on-demand now. Click below for showtimes near you.

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