Introduction
Chris Ryan’s Strike Back, also known as Strike Back: Origins on Cinemax, is a six-part British television series based on the novel of the same name written by best-selling author and former soldier of the Special Air Service, Chris Ryan, and is the first series of Strike Back.
The cast of Strike Back is led by Richard Armitage and Andrew Lincoln, also starring Orla Brady, Shelley Conn, Colin Salmon and Jodhi May, including a variety of guest appearances including Toby Stephens, Ewen Bremner, Dhaffer L’Abidine, Shaun Parkes and Alexander Siddig.
Outline
On the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a Special Forces unit takes part in an operation to release a hostage, weapons contractor Kenneth Bratton, during which, John Porter (Armitage) disarms a boy named As’ad wearing a suicide vest
After the hostage is found, two soldiers are killed and one is left in a vegetative state. Believing the boy was responsible, and that Porter did not kill him, he is dishonourably discharged.
Fellow officer Hugh Collinson (Lincoln) becomes the head of Section 20 of MI6.
Seven years later, journalist Katie Dartmouth (Brady) is kidnapped outside Basra by the “Sword of Islam”; the kidnappers demand the release of one of their comrades from Belmarsh Prison. They chop off Dartmouth’s hand over a live video feed. Upon realising one of the kidnappers is As’ad, Collinson “reactivates” Porter.
A separate unit is tasked with retrieving Dartmouth after tracking the live feed, but it is a decoy; they are killed when the building rigged with explosives detonates.
In the end, Porter goes on his own to the same apartment building during the same operation seven years previous.
Strike Back Series
You can find a full index of Series 01 here.
You can find a full index of the Strike Back series here.
Production & Filming Details
- Director(s): Daniel Percival.
- Writer(s): Jed Mercurio.
- Release Date: 05 May 2010.
- Running Time: 42-48 minutes.
- Country: UK and US.
- Language: English.
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