Shadow Force (2025) – Review

2025  •  Lionsgate Films

Rated:  R

Length:  1 hr  44min

Action ~ Drama ~ Thriller

Director:  Joe Carnahan

Writers:  Joe Carnahan and Leon Chills.

Actors:  Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Jahleel Kamara, Mark Strong, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Cliff “Method Man” Smith.

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Family Over Everything!

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Official Trailer

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Shadow Force (2025) – Review

They used to be the best in the business: Kyrah (Kerry Washington) and her husband Issac (Omar Sy), elite government assassins who took down the world’s worst. But Issac and Kyrah fell in love, Kyrah became pregnant with their son Ky (Jahleel Kamara), and both abruptly went underground to raise their child in peace.  Knowing that their old team, led by Jack Cinder (Mark Strong), will never let them live in peace, she has left Isaac and Ky to “Shadow” them to protect Ky from assailants.

While Kyrah is hiding in the shadows protecting her son, Isaac is front and present playing Mr. Mom, raising Ky as an estranged Dad. The chemistry between father and son feels real as they both sing along to Stevie Wonder songs on the car’s radio. Jahleel Kamara steals the scenes from Omar in the car. When Isaac goes into his bank, he steps right into a bank robbery. He tries to keep his cover but when the robbers threaten his son Ky, he is forced to take action and takes out the whole crew. Essentially giving up his cover and putting them on Cinder’s radar.

Realizing he must disappear with Ky quickly, he packs and runs with Ky to a safehouse in Columbia. The race is on as Isaac and Ky try to remain alive and off the radar, and Kyrah plays bait to draw the assassins of her team and others away from Isaac and Ky. The tension really kicks into high gear once they hit Colombia. It stops being a “dad on the run” story and turns into a total survival thriller. Mark Strong is great as the villain—he’s cold, calculated, and uses every high-tech trick in the book to hunt them down. You really feel the shift from those quiet, sweet moments of them singing Stevie Wonder in the car to the pure chaos of trying to stay alive.

Kyrah is a total powerhouse, too. Watching Kerry Washington pick off Cinder’s hitmen one by one from the shadows is easily the best part of the action, reminds me of Jennifer Lopez in The Mother. But the movie’s real heart shows up in the final act when the family finally reunites. Even though we’ve seen this kind of “retired assassin” plot before, the bond between Isaac and his son makes you actually care if they make it out. It’s not just about the gunfights; it’s about whether they can ever just be a normal family again. By the end, Shadow Force keeps you on the edge of your seat. It’s a solid reminder that you can’t really run from your past, but you’ll do anything to keep your kids from paying the price for it.

The ending definitely leaves the door wide open for more. After the final showdown on the island, the Sarr family manages to settle back into a somewhat normal life, but the “happily ever after” feels like it’s on borrowed time. A sequel would almost certainly dive into that big reveal from the finale—Kyrah is pregnant with their second child, which ups the stakes even higher than before. Plus, there’s that lingering offer from Auntie to join a “new and improved” version of Shadow Force.

A second movie could follow a Mr. & Mrs. Smith style path where they try to juggle a growing family while being pulled back into the world of morally grey ops—maybe this time working for the “good guys” but realizing the shadows are never truly gone. With Mark Strong’s character Cinder out of the way, a sequel would likely introduce a new, even more high-tech threat that forces the kids to start learning the “family business” a lot sooner than Isaac and Kyrah ever wanted. Shadow Force: Family Style,  or maybe Shadow Force: Bloodlines, or just Shadow Force 2, what do you think?

Shadow Force (2025) – Review by Bobby @ Streaming Movie Night.

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Movie Stills

Shadow Force (2025) – Review © 2026 Streaming Movie Night