GOD’S SOLDIER (2025)

3 stars

Miracle Media. Digital. 16th June

GOD’S SOLDIER is one of those films that throws in various scenes in the beginning which ultimately will be important to the plot but initially may have you scratching your head.

In 2002 a pregnant laboratory scientist, working on an Ebola vaccine, is accidentally infected. She dies but her daughter survives after her husband gives her an untested jab. He realises the child could well the key to a successful medical breakthrough and has his mother take her away and hide her.

Meanwhile in Mexico, a lone, masked gunman dressed in combats, attacks a heavily guarded compound. Much gunfire and over emphatic music. They reach the intended target – and accuse him of drug trafficking, kidnapping children for a paedophile ring and stealing organs and summarily shoots him.

Elsewhere, at a facility, Steiner (William Baldwin, the only familiar face in the cast) is watching as youngsters train in combat drills. He then turns up at the nanotech lab to demand the whereabouts of the child and promptly shoots the father in the head (which seems a bit stupid).

12 years later we are in a small village in Thailand. It is suddenly raided by black garbed and masked men, who round up the villagers. Steiner is there too and tells the men to test all the youngsters. Sample 22 is a match and she promptly runs away. In retribution they kill all the villagers and burn the place down.

Cut to Present day as the plot jumps around again. May Lee (Emmy Kim Sawyer) is still alive and living and working at an orphanage run by nun Gina (Carolina Carlsson) in Bangkok. For some reason the seemingly innocuous nun has PTSD style flashbacks and May Lee is non-verbal. Steiner is still trying to track the young girl down, but he now has competition from other groups, as the youngsters blood is valuable to big pharma companies. How will all this eventually play out? Will you care?

Baldwin gives a sneering performance, as he mouths the often clunky dialogue in the script by director Jean-Marc Minéo (English adaptation by Jayney Mackie), though he is the best actor here, as much of the rest of the cast are amateurish. This convoluted action thriller is overlong and at times ridiculous and with an overly nasty streak to it. Though it does have various well staged fight sequences along the way, accompanied by the over the top music score. And I am sure you can guess the nun isn’t all she seems…

Aka: G.I.N.A. God’s Soldier

Steve Kirkham