One Last Shot

If James Nunn’s original One Shot movie sometimes resembled a first person shooter, this supposedly final instalment looks like a computer game trying to be a thriller, complete with forest and basement locations, odd pauses for dialogue and familiar plot twists. It can’t match the energy of the original and is aiming instead for sophistication, something which at least has the benefit of giving Scott Adkins a bit more room to act and try to turn his thinly written character into a rounded human being. The fights are more spaced out but still deliver. Notably, more thought has been given to structure, which entails a bit of cheating with the one shot concept as we move in and out of phone screens and the like but does succeed in expanding the film’s dramatic possibilities, and is often entertaining.

We begin in the company of one Elena Torres (Hannah Ware), a high ranking security commissioner catching up on worrying news reports as she hurries to an emergency conference with top generals. The conference, however, proves to be a trap, orchestrated by Carter (Steven Cree). As others are mown down around her, Elena, with the presence of mind to be small and quiet, manages to escape, carrying vital data. Carter’s men begin hunting for her, but it emerges that the footage we have been watching, most of it recorded on a smuggled-in phone, is also being viewed at a distance by her trusted ally Admiral Mulholland (Dolph Lundgren), who responds by dispatching a rescue team supported by Adkins’ character, Jake. The catch? Jake is still pretty badly beaten up from his last adventure, and he and Carter are friends.

It’s an off-the-books mission, so should things go wrong, nobody is coming to the rescue – and of course they do go wrong. Jake’s fellow soldiers are dressed for hiding in shadows but they might as well be wearing red shirts. Very few of them get any character development. After a long run through forest, which Nunn’s direction manages to keep interesting even though less actually happens then than at any other point in the film, they reach the secret entrance to a basement level beneath the stately home where Carter is holding hostages and making plans, and from there it’s a matter of taking out enemy soldiers one by one as they try to complete their mission.

Elena, thankfully, does get some character development. We have been encouraged to root for her from the start by the concern she shows for her young aide, and now she wants to rescue the hostages, though they – mostly being military personnel themselves – may want her to reset her priorities. As she and Jake work their way through the building, their routes inevitably intersecting, complications develop, with Carter, for all his mercenary approach, raising some salient points. Jake has big decisions to make. Fortunately he does also have fighting to do, and that, for many viewers, will be where the magic is. Realistically, given his prior state of injury, these are mostly short sequences. They tend to be functional and brutal, not as inventive as in some of his films, but again they have more to say about character. The final boss fight is particularly gnarly.

The film’s difficulty is that whilst it is in many ways better made than the original, it is now no longer in the clever experimental actioner bracket; it has moved into the action thriller bracket, where it is much harder to compete. It will appeal to existing fans, but it’s hard to see it making a big impression on anyone new.

Reviewed on: 18 Oct 2026