Though it screens at just one commercial venue in Ireland, this visceral tale (for once we can employ that overused adjective literally) of the British war in Afghanistan is among the month’s most arresting new films.

Paul Katis’s feature debut deals with an incident around the Kajaki Dam from 2006 that found a platoon wandering into a minefield left over from the Soviet conflict. The first soldier to suffer injury assumes he has been hit by a mortar. A medic steps on another mine and the paras realise they are surrounded by potential annihilation. They must stay alive in hostile territory while waiting for help to arrive.

Kajaki has much in common with last year's effective Lone Survivor, but Katis's picture is sparer, less gung-ho and (insofar as we civilians can tell) significantly more realistic. The director is unsparing in his determination to show the result of a "mine strike"; viewers wary of dangling entrails should prepare to hide heads behind hands. Featuring a soundtrack free of music, the picture is scored to the desperate screams of young men cornered by pain and fear.

Kajaki begins with one of our heroes slinging mild abuse at a native Afghani, but the film is no more engaged with colonialism and politics than was the thematically related Zulu. This is a true-life adventure about desperate men trying to survive in hostile situations. Some of the injured soldiers' dialogue is, considering the circumstances, just a little too perky to be believed. There isn't quite enough plot to stretch over 108 minutes. But the strong, earthy performances by an experienced if unstarry cast bring profane integrity to a brave project.

Don't be surprised if Kajaki gate-crashes the Baftas in a few months time.