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Shadow Force (2025 film)

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Shadow Force
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJoe Carnahan
Written by
  • Leon Chills
  • Joe Carnahan
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyJuan Azpiroz
Edited by
  • Kevin Hale
  • Mike Sale
Music byCraig DeLeon
Production
companies
  • Made with Love Media
  • Simpson Street
  • Indian Meadows Productions
Distributed byLionsgate Films
Release date
  • May 9, 2025 (2025-05-09)
Running time
104 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$40 million[2]
Box office$4.3 million[3][4]

Shadow Force is a 2025 American action thriller film directed by Joe Carnahan and co-written by Carnahan and Leon Chills. It stars Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Mark Strong, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and Cliff "Method Man" Smith.

Shadow Force was released theatrically by Lionsgate on May 9, 2025, and received negative reviews from critics.

Plot

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Eight years previously, Kyrah Owens and Issac Sarr were the leaders of a multinational special forces group called Shadow Force, a CIA clandestine operations team performing assassinations in the interest of the United States Government under the direction of Jack Cinder. But Issac and Kyrah fell in love, Kyrah became pregnant with their son Ky, and both abruptly went underground to raise their child in peace. Cinder, who has a volatile temper and does not suffer defeat lightly, has declined to forgive them for their act of "treason" against him, especially since he was obsessively interested in Kyrah himself. Cinder later left the CIA and eventually rose to the rank of Secretary General of G7, but recently his past career has come under close scrutiny by the United States' Inspector General's office.

With Cinder sending elimination teams after them all the time, Kyrah has assumed the role of bait, leading Cinder's assassins away from her family and eliminating them one by one. One day, however, Issac and Ky get accidentally entangled in a bank heist. When one of the robbers threatens his son, Issac attacks and neutralizes them, thereby drawing the public media's attention. When Cinder sees the footage and realizes that the Sarrs have a child, he blacklists them before the assembled G7 representatives and summons the rest of Shadow Force to hunt them down.

Issac retreats with Ky, who is only marginally aware of his parents' background history, to a concealed shelter in the Colombian jungle, where Kyrah rejoins them. With Ky's life on the line, Issac and Kyrah decide to take the fight to Cinder before he can eliminate them, and summon Kyrah's relatives and CIA contacts Auntie and Unc for help. As the Sarrs move to another hideout, they barely escape an ambush by the Shadow Force, leading them to suspect that either Unc or Auntie must have ratted on them. After getting to Cartagena and separating from her family, Kyrah calls Cinder and demands a personal meeting on Cinder's private island off Cartagena, lest she exposes every one of his secrets to the OIG. While she proceeds to the island, Issac and Ky join Auntie and Unc in Bogotá.

On the island, Kyrah and Cinder have a tense reunion which escalates in Kyrah trying to shoot him, only to be foiled by a custommade Kevlar vest she failed to notice. Issac, Ky, Auntie and Unc are captured by Shadow Force and brought to the island, where Unc is revealed as Cinder's informant, a fact that Auntie has suspected all along. The tables suddenly turn when Patrick and Parker, Cinder's closest aides, identify themselves as OIG special agents assigned to track Cinder's criminal activities; a gunfight erupts in which Cinder, Patrick and Parker are wounded and the rest of Shadow Force killed. While Auntie and Ky intercept Unc as he tries to run, Kyrah is stunned by an explosive booby trap and taken hostage by Cinder. When Issac arrives, Kyrah silently gives him permission to shoot Cinder through her shoulder, enabling them to overwhelm and kill him.

Six months later, the Sarrs have openly resumed their civilian life. Kyrah gets a call from Auntie, who has decided to found a new, morally better Shadow Force and asks her to join, an offer which Kyrah declines for now. As they celebrate Ky's birthday, Kyrah reveals to Issac that she is pregnant with their next child.

Cast

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  • Kerry Washington as Kyrah Owens, a former co-leader of Shadow Force under the codename "Ombra"
  • Omar Sy as Issac Sarr, a former co-leader of Shadow Force under the codename "Sombra"
  • Jahleel Kamara as Ky Sarr, Kyrah and Issac's son
  • Mark Strong as Jack Cinder, the former founder and director of Shadow Force and currently Secretary General of the G7
  • Da'Vine Joy Randolph as "Auntie"/Marvella, Kyrah's older sister and a high-ranking CIA official
  • Method Man (credited as Cliff "Method Man" Smith) as "Unc"/Avery, Auntie's husband and Kyrah's brother-in-law
  • Marshall Cook as Patrick, Cinder's personal aide and secretly an OIG agent
  • Ed Quinn as Parker, one of Cinder's chief operatives and secretly an OIG agent
  • Krondon (credited as Marvin Jones III) as Cysgod, a former Shadow Force operative
  • Jénel Stevens-Thompson as Anino, a former Shadow Force operative
  • Sala Baker as Scath, a former Shadow Force operative
  • Natalia Reyes as Moriti, a former Shadow Force operative
  • Yoson An as Varjo, a former Shadow Force operative
  • Carlos Rei del Castillo as "Aloka", one of Cinder's chief operatives
  • Jake Tapper as news anchor (credited as Himself)

Production

[edit]

On August 16, 2019, Leon Chills' script Shadow Force was acquired by Kerry Washington's production company Simpson Street, Sterling K. Brown's Indian Meadows and Steven "Dr." Love's Made in Love Media, and in September that same year, Lionsgate acquired distribution of the film.[5][6] On October 26, 2020, Victoria Mahoney was hired to direct the movie with Joe Carnahan rewriting the script with Chills.[7][8] On April 8, 2022, Carnahan replaced Mahoney as director.[9]

Along with the announcement, Washington and Brown were set to play the leads.[5] On April 8, 2022, Omar Sy replaced Brown.[9] In August 2022, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Method Man, Mark Strong, Jahleel Kamara, Krondon, Natalia Reyes, Yoson An and Ed Quinn were cast in the film.[10][11] On September 16, 2022, Jénel Stevens-Thompson and Marshall Cook were cast in the film.[12]

On August 30, 2022, principal photography was set to start in Colombia.[11] In October 2022, Washington and Quinn confirmed that filming wrapped.[13][14]

Release

[edit]

Shadow Force released in the United States on May 9, 2025. It was delayed from its original release date of May 2, 2025, to take advantage of Mother's Day weekend and avoid competition with Marvel Studios' Thunderbolts*.[15][16]

Reception

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Box office

[edit]

The film made $2 million from 2,170 theaters in its opening weekend, finishing sixth at the box office. Following its debut, Deadline Hollywood reported the film would lose the studio around $10 million.[17]

Critical response

[edit]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 29% of 31 critics' reviews are positive.[18] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 27 out of 100, based on six critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[19] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while 54% of those surveyed by PostTrak said they would definitely recommend it.[17]

Clint Worthington of RogerEbert.com gave the film one out of four stars and wrote, "Sure, the script sucks and the characters are bad, but I'd almost forgive that if the action was any good. Sadly, Carnahan seems to have lost his touch, with a few glimmers of intense fight choreography obscured by dim lighting or scattershot editing."[20]

Peter Debruge of Variety wrote that the film "aspires to John Wick-ish levels of hyperbolic action without having the elevated fight choreography or visual panache to pull that off. Shot almost entirely in Colombia, the film's locations and P. Erik Carlson's production design are plusses that Juan Miguel Azpiroz's widescreen cinematography doesn't fully exploit, providing neither grittiness nor high style to material that could use one or the other."[21]

References

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  1. ^ "Shadow Force (2025)". Irish Film Classification Office. Retrieved April 7, 2025.
  2. ^ "'Thunderbolts*' Striking $35M 2nd Weekend; 'Sinners' Strong $20M For 4th Frame – Box Office Update". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
  3. ^ "Shadow Force". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 28, 2025.
  4. ^ "Shadow Force – Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved May 28, 2025.
  5. ^ a b Fleming, Mike Jr. (August 16, 2019). "Hot Package: Kerry Washington & Sterling K. Brown To Star In 'Shadow Force'". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 10, 2023. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  6. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (September 12, 2019). "Lionsgate Lands Kerry Washington-Sterling K. Brown Action Film 'Shadow Force'". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 10, 2023. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  7. ^ Vlessing, Etan (October 26, 2020). "Victoria Mahoney to Direct Action Film 'Shadow Force' for Lionsgate". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on January 4, 2023. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
  8. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (October 26, 2020). "'Rise Of Skywalker' Second Unit Director Victoria Mahoney To Helm Lionsgate Action Drama 'Shadow Force'". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 3, 2022. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  9. ^ a b Wiseman, Andreas (April 8, 2022). "Omar Sy & Kerry Washington Set To Star In Lionsgate Action-Thriller 'Shadow Force'; Joe Carnahan Directing". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on November 16, 2022. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  10. ^ Grobar, Matt (August 16, 2022). "'Shadow Force': Da'Vine Joy Randolph & Cliff "Method Man" Smith Join Joe Carnahan's Action-Thriller For Lionsgate". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 10, 2023. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  11. ^ a b Grobar, Matt (August 30, 2022). "'Shadow Force': Mark Strong, Jahleel Kamara, Marvin "Krondon" Jones III, Natalia Reyes, Yoson An & Ed Quinn Board Lionsgate Action-Thriller". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 10, 2023. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  12. ^ Grobar, Matt (September 16, 2022). "'Karma's A -', 'Shadow Force', 'Swipe NYC', 'Unfelt', 'Midnight In The Orange Grove', 'Love Bomb', 'The Disruptors' Castings; Acquisitions By Gravitas, Virgil, Freestyle, Buffalo 8; More – Film Briefs". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 5, 2022. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
  13. ^ Ed Quinn (October 4, 2022). "Well that was the experience of a lifetime". Instagram. Meta Platforms. Archived from the original on January 14, 2023. Retrieved January 14, 2023.
  14. ^ Kerry Washington (October 3, 2022). "Thats a wrap! Today was my final day on filming #ShadowForce. And… Holy sh*t! What a CRAZY F*#%ING ride". Instagram. Meta Platforms. Archived from the original on January 5, 2023. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
  15. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (February 21, 2025). "Joe Carnahan's 'Shadow Force' With Kerry Washington & Omar Sy To Help Kick Off Summer This Year – Box Office". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved February 21, 2025.
  16. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (April 9, 2025). "Lionsgate's Kerry Washington & Omar Sy Action Pic 'Shadow Force' Invades Mother's Day Weekend". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved April 11, 2025.
  17. ^ a b D'Alessandro, Anthony (May 11, 2025). "'Thunderbolts*' Simmers $33M 2nd Frame; 'Sinners' Strong $21M 4th Weekend; Making Sense Of Single Digit Bows 'Clown', 'Shadow Force' & 'Fight Or Flight' – Box Office Update". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved May 11, 2025.
  18. ^ "Shadow Force". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved May 12, 2025.
  19. ^ "Shadow Force Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved May 16, 2025.
  20. ^ Worthington, Clint (May 2025). "Shadow Force". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved May 12, 2025.
  21. ^ Debruge, Peter (May 9, 2025). "'Shadow Force' Review: Two Spies Get Dragged From the Cold in Middling Action Opus". Variety. Retrieved May 12, 2025.
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