Ballistic (2026) Movie Review: Lena Headey headlines a clueless thriller about misplaced grief

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Grief works so differently for each person that you are bound to be surprised by it. Some people choose to grieve in silence, cutting themselves off from society and letting the loss consume them before they move to the next stage of acceptance. Others skip the stage where the loss consumes them and dismiss the idea of accepting that their loved one was taken away from them before their time. In Chad Faust’s “Ballistic,” Lena Headey plays a mother who refuses to accept the loss of her son. She goes down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theory, showcases extremely unhinged behavior, and teeters on the verge of a breakdown that could harm not just her but those around her, too.

The film opens in a small town in America. It introduces us to the life of Nance Redfield (Lena Headey), a middle-aged single mother who works at a local factory that manufactures bullets for the American army. She has raised her son Jesse (Jordan Kronis) all on her own, and when we first meet the family, she has already married him off to his high-school sweetheart, Diana (Amybeth McNulty), and has him listed for the Army. After a quick ceremony, he is off to his first posting in Afghanistan. However, on one of his calls to his mother, he raises some pertinent and existential questions about the need to be in a war that he does not understand.

The very next day, the news of his death arrives home. Diana and Nance are both shocked and traumatised by Jesse’s sudden passing, especially considering that Diana is pregnant and Nance had just talked to him the previous night. Looking at his lifeless body in the casket that the American army has brought back, something shifts in Nance. She is unable to process that her son is gone, so she starts questioning the trajectory of his death; the Talibanis involved, the bullet that went through his body, and who is responsible for her son’s death.

Talking about the bullet, Nance starts to believe that the enemy bullet that caused her son’s death and is now stuck in his chest is actually the one that her own factory manufactured. Since Diana does not consent to taking the bullet out of her husband’s body, Nance takes some questionable steps that lead her on a downward spiral like no other. The rest of “Ballistic” involves Nance going on a semi-mission to uncover the truth about the American army complex, the reason American bullets have travelled across borders to the other side, and why his son had to die, leaving the single mother all alone in this world.

However, director Faust is interested in digging a little deeper than that. The introduction of Hamza Haq (Kahlil Nabizada), a Taliban immigrant who runs a support group for people who have lost loved ones due to the ongoing war, causes ripple effects in the narrative. Both Hamza and Diana are used to coax the grey shades in Nance’s mind – a mind that she is slowly losing because she simply can’t put her grief in the right place.

The film thus becomes a look at misplaced grief and anger, only to be subjugated by a tone that leans toward being a convoluted thriller about revenge. Faust’s editor chugs past the more languid sequences that would have made the film more grounded and deep, and instead opts for the ones that keep turning the film’s focus onto the unhinged nature of this mother on fire. The film carefully treads the line of being pro-weapon propaganda, whilst carefully magnifying Nance’s ever-changing moral compass. Sadly, the film seems completely clueless about what it wants to do with all those elements. It almost abandons Diana’s character – a key tee-hook to understand the course of Nance’s descent into madness, only to bring her back for a limp finale that is not earned.

The only redeeming factor here remains Lena Headey’s committed performance as a woman and mother in complete and utter turmoil. Like his previous film – “Girl”, where Faust was able to conjure up an extremely well-tuned performance from Bella Thorne, “Ballistic” will only be remembered for Headey’s turn, and sadly, nothing else.