Skip to main content

This action war movie is popular on Netflix. Here’s why you should watch it

The Afghanistan War drama The Kill Team arrived in theaters with little fanfare in 2019. Only a handful of people actually saw it during its initial run. Now, The Kill Team has appeared among the most popular movies on Netflix, which may finally give it the wider audience that it deserves.

The Kill Team was directed and written by Dan Krauss, who based it on his 2013 documentary of the same name. The story loosely adapts the Maywand District murders, a series of disturbing incidents in which U.S. soldiers murdered innocent Afghan civilians seemingly for sport. Nat Wolff stars in the film as Andrew Briggman, with Alexander Skarsgård as Sergeant Deeks, Adam Long as Rayburn, Jonathan Whitesell as Coombs, Brian “Sene” Marc as Marquez, Rob Morrow as William Briggman, Osy Ikhile as Weppler, Anna Francolini as Laura Briggman, Oliver Ritchie as Cappy, Tunji Kasim as Sergeant Wallace, and Taz Skylar as Sergeant Dawes.

Recommended Videos

Now, it’s time to share three reasons why you should watch The Kill Team on Netflix.

Alexander Skarsgård gives one of his best performances

Alexander Skarsgård in The Kill Team.
A24

HBO fans won’t be surprised to hear that Alexander Skarsgård gives a great performance in The Kill Team after watching his starring turns in True Blood and Succession. But even when he played the vampire Eric Northman, Skarsgård wasn’t as intimidating as he is here as Deeks.

Deeks isn’t the kind of guy who needs to puff his chest and yell to make his men fall in line. It takes surprisingly little for Deeks to convince most of his team that killing random citizens is not only an acceptable thing to do, but it’s also the right thing to do. Human lives have no value to Deeks, and even the mission in Afghanistan doesn’t matter much to him. All he wants or needs is an excuse to kill the people that he has deemed his enemies.

It’s a morality tale

The cast of The Kill Team.
A24

Only one member of the squad, Andrew Briggman, actively refuses to go along with Deeks’ murderous plans, and he’s openly appalled by the entire thing. From Briggman’s perspective, it’s a completely terrifying experience because he knows that if he reports the team’s murderous habits, then the next body lying in the desert may be his own.

This isn’t a story that offers easy answers, or even an appealing solution for Briggman. All he wants to do is serve his country, but Briggman learns too late that he’s stepped into a metaphorical minefield, and he may not be able to escape without betraying the men he served alongside before Deeks joined the team.

A battle of the wills

Nat Wolff in The Kill Team.
A24

Perhaps the most insidious thing about Deeks is that he’s not satisfied until everyone in the unit is on board with his endless slaughter, including Briggman. Deeks tries all sorts of psychological manipulation, and even threatens Briggman’s parents, William (Rob Morrow) and Laura Briggman (Anna Francolini).

Briggman’s will is pushed to its breaking point as he faces peer pressure from his unit and Deeks to give in. You’ll have to wait until late in the movie to see how that plays out, but the tension between the two leads is electric.

Watch The Kill Team on Netflix.

Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…
The 10 most popular movies on Netflix right now
A woman puts her head up against the window in a truck.

Netflix is one of the most popular streaming services in the world, with nearly 280 million subscribers. And just what do those people tend to watch? In particular, what is the most popular movie on Netflix? Each week, the streaming service releases a list of its 10 most-watched movies over a recent seven-day period to keep subscribers in the loop regarding its most popular titles.

The consensus is in: Audiences love Anna Kendrick's directorial debut, Woman of the Hour. The drama about a serial killer on a dating show remains the No. 1 movie for the second consecutive week. Two new movies, Kung Fu Panda 4 and Don't Move, debuted at No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. Below, we've listed the top 10 movies in the U.S. from October 21 to October 27, along with general information about each film, such as genre, rating, cast, and synopsis.

Read more
5 Netflix action movies that are perfect to stream for the fall
A man aims a gun in Baby Driver.

As the weather starts to cool off, the fall can be the ideal time to take advantage of all the streaming subscriptions that you didn't use much while you were enjoying the summer activities in the outdoors. If you're looking for great action movies on Netflix, then we've got you covered.

Finding interesting movies on Netflix can be a challenge because of how many titles the service throws at you, but we've pulled together five movies that are definitely worth your time and aren't in danger of leaving the streaming service before the end of the season. Check out our picks below.

Read more
If you have to stream one scary movie this Halloween, watch this one
A woman lies on the ground in Saint Maud.

Long before she was saving Middle-earth on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Morfydd Clark made a name for herself in one of the wildest horror movies of the past decade. Saint Maud may not be one of the movies you think of first when you think of recent horror classics, but it's a movie that definitely deserves to be part of any Halloween watchlist.

The film follows Maud, a highly religious young nurse who becomes convinced that she has to save her patient's soul before she dies. As she goes to increasingly dramatic lengths to achieve that end, and to purify herself, we see exactly how fanatical she really is. Here are three reasons the movie is worth checking out this spooky season.
Morfydd Clark is truly exceptional
Saint Maud | Official Trailer HD | A24

Read more