Lucky Strike review – likably manly Scott Eastwood fights his way home in second world war yarn

Scott (son of Clint) is a wounded soldier behind enemy lines in this competent thriller with tense set pieces and clunky passages

If you’re looking for something to watch with a man whose eyes brim with any mention of the second world war, this will do fine. Although essentially a manly feature about men doing man stuff in battle, with just the one lady in it (an indelible Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) for a mere slip of a framing device, it’s not unequivocally macho and actually dips its toes into the murkier waters of wartime morality. As a simple exercise in suspense, it’s certainly effective, but there are clunky passages that prevent it from being top-tier entertainment.

Scott Eastwood stars as Capt John Castle, an officer in the US army who gets stranded behind enemy lines in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. His whole squadron is killed in a skirmish with the Germans; he is left injured, equipped only with a trusty portable radio he nicknames Lassie, a faithful companion that will guide him home. Like Castle himself, the film limps a little between its big set pieces, but when they arrive they’re very well staged. One tense moment involves a kind Walloon family who hide Castle under their floorboards and then suffer dearly for their kindness. In another nail-biting bit, Castle plays possum on the ground among some slain soldiers, only to realise that the corpse beside him is not only not dead but about to give him away. The very best sequence comes near the end when Castle meets a lone American in the forest who Castle starts to suspect is not quite right given his sympathetic words about Hitler and scant knowledge of baseball.