Action film “12 Strong” hit theaters this past week. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by photojournalist Nicolai Fuglsig, the film debuted on Jan. 19. It’s based off of the book “Horse Soldiers” by Doug Stanton, which tells the now “declassified” story of the special forces team sent to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan after the attacks on 9/11.
The team is led by Captain Mitch Nelson, played by Chris Hemsworth (“Thor”), who has never lead a mission before and has to fight bureaucracy to get his team chosen for the mission. When the team arrives in Afghanistan, they partner up with warlord Abdul Dostrum (Navid Negahban, “Homeland”) and his men. Their mission? Taking the city of Mazar-I-Sharif from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. How’d they do it? By horseback and a lot of U.S. bombers.
Perhaps the best part of the movie was the somewhat complicated relationship between Nelson and Dostrum. “12 Strong” pits Afghan men alongside American men, fighting the same enemy. When Nelson’s team arrived in Afghanistan, they didn’t know much about Afghan culture, their language or the terrain. They had no choice but to trust Dostrum and fight alongside him. The two leaders don’t always agree on strategy, but they have a respect for each other and are able to put their differences aside.
The film has a strong castlineup, featuring William Fichtner (“Black Hawk Down”), Trevante Rhodes (“Moonlight”), Michael Peña (“Crash”), Michael Shannon (“Nocturnal Animals”) and Robert Allen Riggle Jr. (“21 Jump Street”), but there are moments in which the characters and storyline lack depth. It would have been nice to see more character development. The only glimpse of it we see is with Rhodes, who plays Sergeant Ben Milo. He is skeptical of an Afghan boy who follows him around the camp until he realizes the young boy is assigned to protect him. He then takes a liking to the boy and you get to see a gentler side of him.
The film struggles to show a well-rounded plot. In one scene, the film awkwardly switches to a Taliban leader executing a female teacher for teaching girls how to read and do math. The scene’s purpose was to give the audience cultural context, but it’s placement felt jarring.
Overall, this is a good film that shows the untold story of 12 American heroes most have probably never heard of. There were great visuals and sound effects during the war scenes and the film did manage to give you this sense of patriotism. I would still recommend seeing the film if you are into action movies.
