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12 Strong Review

January 19, 2018 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris
12 Strong
7
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12 Strong Review  

Directed By: Nicolai Fuglsig
Written By: Ted Tally and Peter Craig; Based on the book Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton
Runtime: 130 minutes
MPAA Rating: Rated R for war violence and language throughout

Chris Hemsworth – Captain Mitch Nelson
Michael Shannon – Hal Spencer
Michael Pe̱a РSam Diller
Navid Negahban – General Dostum
Trevante Rhodes – Ben Milo
Geoff Stults – Sean Coffers
Thad Luckinbill – Vern Michaels
Austin H̩bert РPat Essex
Rob Riggle – Lt. Colonel Bowers
William Fichtner – Colonel Mulholland
Numan Acar – Mullah Razzan
Arshia Mandavi – Najeeb
Elsa Pataky – Jean Nelson

Without high expectations and a lack of cynicism regarding the aftermath, 12 Strong is actually a decently watchable and competently made war film. Starting on the morning of September 11, 2001, it shows a group of soldiers stationed in Kentucky eager to get retribution and defend the homeland at the time when the “War on Terror” had not yet been officially coined as an everyday household term.

After just putting in for a desk job to spend more time with his family, Captain Mitch Nelson (Hemsworth) puts in a spirited request to his commanding officer, Lt. Colonel Bowers (Riggle), to reform his unit of Green Berets and go to the Middle-East to fight the Taliban. After Nelson’s Chief Warrant Officer Hal Spencer (Shannon) tears up his retirement papers and strongly vouches for Nelson, Nelson’s team is reassembled and deployed to Afghanistan, leaving their worried families behind.

In Afghanistan, despite having never seen active combat during war, Nelson makes a convincing pitch to take Afghanistan back from the Taliban to prevent further coordinated terrorist attacks from the United States in three weeks. With winter fast approaching, the window to operate is closing fast. Nelson and his team are ordered to align with one of the warlord leaders of the Northern Alliance, a group of untrained mounted soldiers led by the experienced General Dostum (Negahban). Their relationship is incredibly tenuous at first, with Dostum not believing that Nelson has the eyes of a killer. Additionally, they face a bloodthirsty Taliban leader in Mullah Razzan (Acar), who is heavily armed and controls the gap to get to Mazar-i-Sharif, and the clock is ticking.

As a film, 12 Strong doesn’t focus much on the complications or the aftermath of the early days of the War on Terror. It’s singularly focused on that period of a handful of months after September 11 when the United States invaded Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power. At times, the plot does come off as a little tone-deaf, especially in the opening sequence with the appearance of a certain political leader.

Regardless, director Nicolai Fuglsig is able to put together a competent and decently intense theatrical experience. Once the plot shifts to Afghanistan, he puts together some intense and cohesively staged action sequences. One thing that’s really good about the action here is that it never comes off as overly edited with an insane level of quick cuts. New Mexico serves as a nice visual double with some great sweeping aerial shots and scenes of the soldiers having to acclimate to the very harsh and hazardous terrain.

Where the script suffers is that despite the opening boldly reminding the audience that it’s “based on a true story,” the general narrative plays out a lot like Rambo III. In the case of 12 Strong versus Rambo III, the evil communist Russians can be subbed out for the evil Taliban soldiers. There are a lot of familiar and rather predictable beats that have been borrowed or heavily repeated in numerous other war films, both fictional and non-fictional, including one of the soldiers, Ben Milo (Rhodes), forming a bond with a young boy assigned to guard him from the Taliban.

Chris Hemsworth is a good commanding presence in the lead role, and he does a good job with what he’s given as inexperienced soldier forced to mediate between the Northern Alliance and gain valuable foothold to call in aerial bombing strikes against the Taliban. Some of Hemsworth’s old flaws continue to rear their ugly head. He’s an actor with magnetism, commanding presence and a steely gaze. However, he still can’t really do a flat or believable American accent to save his life. Here it seems he can’t decide if he’s just trying to sound American of a vague approximation of southern Georgian. At least, it sounds like Hemsworth wants to sound Georgian, but it doesn’t work. Even Nelson’s wife Jean (played by Hemsworth’s real-life spouse, Pataky) isn’t forced to adopt a bad southern accent here. It’s not completely his fault, but Nelson is also forced to use some rather ham-fisted, heavy-handed dialogue that hammers the plot and stakes a bit too much.

The rest of the cast, especially Peña and Shannon are all well cast and do a lot with very little. Most of the other soldiers in Nelson’s unit, while not heavily developed, are at least fairly discernible as characters. 12 Strong is lacking as an exceptional movie, but as a film dramatizing the events of US invasion of Afghanistan shortly after 9/11, Fuglsig and producer Jerry Bruckheimer have presented a halfway decent movie that turns out better than expected.

7.0
The final score: review Good
The 411
If you can put aside any issues with the subject matter and the aftermath of such, 12 Strong is a decently made and exciting war movie about a group of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan to overtake the Taliban in the early days of the War on Terror. It's far from a great film, and most historians will likely have an easy time separating fact from fiction. However, Fuglsig and producer Jerry Bruckheimer have presented a film that makes for a good matinee viewing experience if the time and money are available to spare. Others might find the subject matter overly jingoistic, but that is for them to decide.
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