Let’s Have Another Look at Marine Prison Break Thriller ‘Semper Fi’

When the trailer for the prison break thriller "Semper Fi" dropped a few weeks back, it got a somewhat mixed response, especially from our colleague James Clark at Task & Purpose.

The film stars Jai Courtney as a Marine Corps veteran who's determined to help his screwup little brother break out of prison. He enlists his war buddies for the mission, and the crew sets out.

The trailer may have suggested a by-the-numbers crime flick, but it turns out that the team behind the movie has resumés suggesting a real affinity with the military community.

Director Henry Alex Rubin made "Murderball," the outstanding 2005 documentary about wheelchair rugby. The film earned Rubin an Oscar nomination and featured a salty crew of guys dealing with life after paralyzing injury. There are a few veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan near the film's end.

Army veteran Sean Mullin co-wrote "Semper Fi" with Rubin. He also wrote and directed the outstanding 2015 romantic comedy "Amira & Sam" about an Army veteran who returns home and falls in love with an Iraqi immigrant.

RELATED: Army Vet Sean Mullin Talks About 'Amira & Sam'

Marine veteran Rudy Reyes served as a consultant on "Semper Fi" and acts the role of Capt. Vera in the movie. Reyes, of course, is the legendary badass who played himself in the HBO series "Generation Kill."

So we've got a group who's proven their bona fides on military-related projects in the past. They probably deserve a shot with "Semper Fi."

Rubin has shared a [redacted] scene from the movie that's a flashback to the Iraq war. He explains, "In this scene, which takes place in Northern Iraq circa 2005, the Iraqi police -- who the U.S. forces have been asked to train -- have led them into an ambush. I was lucky enough to have two former Recon Marines, Rudy Reyes and Chris Joliet, oversee the sequence and train Jai Courtney, who plays a staff sergeant in the Marine reserves who is a police officer in upstate New York. All of our extras here were former Marines or Army."

We'll report more on the movie next week before it opens, but this scene promises a better movie than the one suggested by the trailer embedded below.