Order Region 2 DVD/Blu-ray of Strike Back Project Dawn

Strike Back on DVD-UK or Region 2 release

Order your copy, to be released on 14 November. You can also order the first season.

US release not available at this time. We will announce any information as soon as we get it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_7?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=strike+back+project+dawn&sprefix=strike+

http://staticmass.net/blu-ray-dvd/strike-back-project-daw-blu-ray-2011-review/

Strike Back: Project Dawn
By Patrick Samuel • Published Nov 10, 2011
Static Mass Rating: 3/5
STRIKE BACK: PROJECT DAWN (Blu-ray)
2 Entertain

Release date: November 14th 2011
Certificate (UK): 18
Running time: 442 minutes

Directors: Bill Eagles, Alex Holmes, Daniel Percival, Paul Wilmhurst
Writers: Simon Burke, Tony Saint, Frank Spotnitz, Richard Zajdlic

Cast: Philip Winchester, Sullivan Stapleton, Richard Armitage, Amanda Mealing, Rhashan Stone, Michelle Lukes, Eva Birthistle, Jimi Mistry, Alexandra Moen, Iain Glen

With so much going on in the world of secret intelligence, counter-terrorism and international military operations that we get to hear so little about in the media but so much of in the entertainment industry, I was keen to see what Strike Back: Project Dawn would offer.

Season 1 focused on John Porter (Richard Armitage), a former SAS Sergeant who’s brought in to work for Section 20 in the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). As the series evolved we learnt much about the lengths some of those in Section 20 would go to make sure their secrets are kept.

Strike Back: Project Dawn

The stories were engaging, action-packed and as with his role on Spooks, Armitage showed a lot of promise for someone who could potentially take on the role of Bond.

With Season 2, it’s a complete change of pace and this has a lot to do with a complete change in cast and characters. While Porter is in the cast credits, his appearance is fleeting and the impact his presence had on the show is apparent as soon as he’s no longer in it.

Damian Scott (Sullivan Stapleton) is a former United States Delta Force operative who received a dishonourable discharge but he’s now recruited to work for Section 20. Colonel Eleanor Grant (Amanda Mealing) is the new head of the department and she’s tasked with finding out who betrayed Porter and tracking down a Pakistani terrorist, known only as Latif. Based on their intelligence they know Latif is planning an attack code named ‘Project Dawn’.

Strike Back: Project Dawn

Scott and Sergeant Michael Stonebridge (Philip Winchester) are partnered up on a series of missions starting with finding out what happened to Porter. As the episodes progress we see them tracking Latif but also unravelling what seems to be a conspiracy surrounding the staging and subsequent theft of WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in Iraq which would have given the inspectors proof and justification for going to war.

The main story is an intriguing one with implications of a conspiracy deep within MI6 but the execution of it felt as if it missed its mark entirely.

Strike Back: Project Dawn

There are some interesting characters such as Grant and Latif but we don’t get to spend much time with them because a lot of the focus remains on Scott, a foul mouthed nymphomaniac needing to have sex at least twice in each episode and rarely with the same woman. It became distracting, embarrassing and these scenes never helped to advance to the main story.

The movement the story was another problem with the show. We learn very early on about the existence of Project Dawn but then it’s put aside for 8 episodes before finally coming back to it with the season closer. By this time it felt like what could have been a great story had been squandered in favour of showcasing random nudity and sex.
SPECIAL FEATURES:

Top Secrets: Making Strike Back Project Dawn (24:11)
Firearms training featurette
Scott Vs Igor fight scene featurette
Broadcast titles

Furthermore, Scott and Stonebridge seemed to be most inapt pair to lead missions as they blow their cover on several occasions, endangering others. The action however does not disappoint; there are a lot of scenes with hand-to-hand combat and explosions. The use of locations such as South Africa and Hungary which also doubled as Mozambique and New Delhi added the feeling of constantly being on the move, even if the main story wasn’t.

Comparisons have been made with other shows like 24, Spooks and Sleeper Cell but for its detracting plot and lack of engaging characters, Strike Back: Project Dawn couldn’t be further from them.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/strike-back-cinemax-season-one,83196/

Strike Back: Cinemax Season One
B
by Noel Murray August 1, 2012

While Starz was making headlines last year by partnering with the BBC on what would turn out to be the disappointing Torchwood: Miracle Day miniseries, Cinemax was airing its own, more successful British co-production: Strike Back, a macho thriller that had originated on Sky1 in 2010. The 2011 Strike Back series was called Strike Back: Project Dawn in the UK, and is called Strike Back: Cinemax Season One on its new DVD/Blu-ray set, though it’s actually season two. The second season consists of 10 episodes, broken into five two-parters, all adding up to one big story. In the first two episodes, season one’s main hero Richard Armitage is kidnapped by the lackeys of a terrorist played by Jimi Mistry, and American stud-soldier Sullivan Stapleton and British commando Philip Winchester are drafted by the UK secret agency Section 20 (and its steely boss Amanda Mealing) to try to rescue Armitage. In subsequent episodes, Stapleton and Winchester hop around the globe, edging closer to Mistry through various espionage, undercover, and military operations. The structure of Strike Back is simple: In the first episode of each two-parter, Stapleton and Winchester are given their assignment and get boots on the ground, usually guided from afar by Mealing; in the second, they find themselves in an impossible, no-escape situation, and work their way out through guile and brute force.

Is the show too simple? To some extent, sure. Strike Back isn’t Emmy or BAFTA bait. It’s a stylish show about burly men with different accents and skin tones shooting guns at each other across artfully lit compounds. The dialogue is frequently dumb and clichéd (“We talked about this; you can’t save everyone!”), the supporting characters are almost all broad types (a typical introduction to a new character: “Journo. War zone junkie. We fucked a couple times.”), and the creators are so committed to titillation that they find ways to work in loud, explicit sex scenes even when the heroes are in life-or-death trouble.

But while pay cable traditionally has been the place to go for smart, “serious” TV, it’s also been the place to find the kind of shows that aren’t on the networks anymore—and since the end of 24 and The Unit, there haven’t been that many shows as action-packed and ambitious in scope as Strike Back. It’s not just that Strike Back reliably delivers gore, jiggle, and outsized setpieces; it’s also in the spirit of classic TV action fare like Miami Vice, where the look, mood, and overall sense of toughness are the selling points. Strike Back doesn’t duck questions about the ethics or human cost of covert action, but the series is more about doing than thinking. And in a TV landscape dominated by procedurals set in sterile rooms with banks of super-computers, it’s good to see a show that heads out into the field, where people get their hands bloody.

Key features: Cast and crew commentaries on selected episodes, and downloads via the “Cinemax Select” service.