Rogue Elements: A Ryan Drake Story Review

Will Jordan, AKA The Critical Drinker, is known as being one of the most prominent ‘anti-woke’ critics on YouTube. He is also a writer of spy-novels, and he co-wrote a short film/proof of concept based on his Ryan Drake character.

Volkov (Mike Dopud) is a Russian operative who tortures and kills two CIA agents to find out who freed a woman from a Russian prison in a Special Forces mission. Volkov sends a recording to Ryan Drake (Derek Moran) and a message saying, ‘Come and get me.’ Drake leads a team to Estonia to rescue a captured man and kill Volkov.

Jordan is a controversial figure. He has become known for his harsh criticisms of Hollywood films and shows, especially Marvel, Disney, and Star Wars projects. He often complains about ‘girl boss’ and a feminist message, and gives out writing advice whilst speaking with a thick slur. It turns out that filmmaking isn’t as easy as he makes out.

Jordan’s online career has been based on negativity, and he has participated in hate campaigns against figures like Kathleen Kennedy and Rachel Zegler. This makes him more open to criticism than other creatives. He was involved in the production of Rogue Elements since he co-wrote the screenplay, and he was present during principal photography, so he doesn’t have the excuse of distance.

Let’s start with the positive. For a low-budget actioner, it had some decent action sequences. There was a fight scene between Keira Frost (Andrea Pavlovic) and Kroger (Steve Boyle) that was a brawl involving fists and knives. Keira was able to put up a hell of a fight against a man who’s over twice her size. Jordan had a cameo where he was shot in the head by a woman. The amount of head shots in Rogue Elements made it seem like the low-budget British film Reckoning Day. I would watch Rogue Elements over Alice in Terrorland, which was a low-effort cash grab made for the straight-to-DVD market. That’s as far as the praise goes.

Rogue Elements was 45 minutes of nothing. It starts with two torture scenes and an unnecessary action scene in a car park, then the scene has too much exposition about who Volkov was, and why he was hiding with Russian separatists in Estonia. It was overly complicating a simple plot. The screenplay and editor could have cut off a lot of the fat and made a leaner short. If the aim was to be a pilot for a TV series, then it failed miserably since the story was skeletal, the setup was unoriginal, and the characters were too one-note to care about. There was no intrigue or wider story to latch onto. It was no better than a Steven Seagal straight-to-DVD film. For a man who criticises Hollywood for having ‘girl-boss’ characters, he had a lady who could take on several Russian soldiers and survive an RPG to the face. Finally, the short felt like it was made for people who had read Jordan’s novel, which was a strange move considering it should have been an opportunity to advertise his novels to new readers.

If the plan was for the series to be picked up by Daily Wire+, it would have been dashed because Daily Wire is imploding fast. Rogue Elements had the audacity to end with two post-credit scenes, as if it were an MCU movie.

Jordan made a video about his experience making Rogue Elements and defending it from the criticisms levelled against the film. That was more entertaining since it showed that Jordan can dish it out but can’t take it. His justifications were budget, audience expectations, and he somehow blamed a woman for the failures. No self-criticism or self-reflection. A video like that would prevent other film and TV professionals from working with Jordan, especially after throwing an actress under the bus.

For a man who made his name criticising Hollywood for their failures, The Critical Drinker isn’t any better. Rogue Elements fails as a pilot and a story on its own terms. It’s easy to go on YouTube to find better short films or just watch action scenes from major films.