Sixteen years after U.S. troops landed in Afghanistan, the conflict there might be summed up as a violent holding pattern, or a stalemate we’re still mired in, or — if you squint hard enough — a slow-motion qualified success. But only the producer Jerry Bruckheimer would seek to portray it as a victory decisive enough to be called a triumph of the kick-ass American spirit.
“12 Strong,” one of those rare “serious” Bruckheimer productions, tells the story of the first U.S. soldiers to land in Afghanistan in the days after 9/11: the members of ODA 595, an elite Special Forces unit that was ordered to link up with a local warlord and fight its way, village by village, to the Taliban stronghold of Mazar-i-Sharif (the country’s fourth largest city). There, they would theoretically gut the Taliban’s nexus of power and topple the ability of Afghanistan to serve as a training ground for Al Qaeda troops.
Chris Hemsworth, in thatchy dark hair and a G.I. Joe scruff, speaking in a manly low voice of superstar resolve, plays the team’s captain, Mitch Nelson, who has never been in combat before. Yet he’s the kind of gung-ho volunteer who’s got sharpshooting in his blood. He may not have “killer eyes” (the warlord’s description of Michael Shannon’s Chief Warrant Officer), but he’s got a killer heart. A family man who only recently arranged to become a desk jockey, Nelson, as the movie presents it, gets slapped awake by 9/11 and fights the bureaucracy to win his shot on the ground. As soon as he arrives, he’s a master of everything: the weather patterns, how to map bombing coordinates for the B-52s that are going to blow Taliban-infested villages into the afterlife, and — of course — how to ride into battle on a horse while blasting a machine gun like a badass medieval knight.
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The American soldiers of ODA 595 defeated the Taliban fighters they were up against, scoring an early blow against the forces of Islamic terrorism. Yet the Taliban, the last time anyone checked, hasn’t exactly jumped ship, and the whole issue of what we’ve accomplished in Afghanistan — forcing the enemy, to a degree, to go elsewhere — remains more than a little murky. “12 Strong,” though, builds a hermetic screen around the first three weeks of the conflict, holding it up to the light as if to say, “Don’t believe the nay-sayers! American heroism still rocks!” I believe that American heroism still does, but that doesn’t make “12 Strong” an illuminating, or overly exciting, war film. It’s more like cheerleading with ballistics. On its own terms, the film is watchable enough, but it’s blunt and stolid and under-characterized, and at 130 minutes it plods.
If there’s anything that great war films like “Saving Private Ryan” or “The Hurt Locker” have taught us, it’s that victory in combat doesn’t look like a street-fight action movie set in a wilderness hellhole. But “12 Strong” is a war film that wants you to feel good about the invincibility of American power. The film is built like a grungy combat video game, with each village treated like a new level and the agony of battle taking a backseat to the pounding thrill of force. The villain is a dastardly Taliban commander (Said Taghmaoui) who looks like a ratty guttersnipe Frank Zappa in black rags; he’s introduced executing a woman in front of her two tearful daughters for the crime of reading. That’s not an exaggeration of Taliban cruelty, but the way the film uses this brute to personify evil is at once reductive and uninteresting. (He’s scary, though not as scary as William Fichtner as a shaven-headed colonel who glowers like Gollum. )
That said, “12 Strong” is only mildly demagogic. It salutes the freedom fighters of Afghanistan, building token hints of drama around the relationship between Capt. Nelson and Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum (Navid Negahban), the Northern Alliance warlord he fights alongside but clashes with when it comes to military strategy. The two have something to teach each other, and I kept thinking how much this relationship would have popped in a David Lean film. But the script of “12 Strong,” written by Ted Tally and Peter Craig (adapting the 2009 bestseller “Horse Soldiers”), is pretty bare bones. When the general accuses Capt. Nelson of being a soldier and not a warrior, we’re eager to see Nelson grow into one, but the film barely bothers to demonstrate the difference.
The novelty that’s the chief selling point of “12 Strong” — the fact that the members of ODA 595 rode horses to make it through the treacherous terrain — doesn’t amount to very much; they all seem to know how, and it’s not as if contemporary soldiers on horseback look any more exotic than cowboys and Indians. The film’s most impressive aspect is its arid landscapes. “12 Strong” was shot in New Mexico, with the mountains there doubling for Afghanistan’s famously craggy and forbidding tableaux, and the director, Nicolai Fuglsig, and cinematographer, Rasmus Videbaek, use the locations to conjure what it might look like to wage war in an endless sprawling no-man’s land.
Visually, the terrain comes close to raising an existential question: What, exactly, are we fighting for in Afghanistan? The film slips in the pointed and now rather outdated argument that if the Taliban can be defeated, and Afghanistan eliminated as an Al Qaeda base, then there will be no more attacks like 9/11. Well, there haven’t been…but is that the reason why? “12 Strong” lends a shape of supreme purpose to a conflict that is still in search of one.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer thinks big, and his war movies can range from noisy idiocy (Pearl Harbor) to near brilliant (Black Hawk Down). Luckily, 12 Strong sees the value in substance as well as spectacle. Based on Doug Stanton's 2009 bestseller, Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rod to Victory in Afghanistan, this rough-hewn drama has a compelling, mostly untold story to relate. After 9/11, an elite Special Forces unit comprised of 12 Green Berets led by Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth), were dropped into Afghanistan in response to the attack. Their mission impossible – codenamed: Task Force Dagger – was to link up with the Northern Alliance, headed by General Abdul Rashid Dostum (Navid Negahban), to take on the Taliban and its Al Qaeda followers. He's show the U.S. team where the enemy was located. Nelson's group would then join in the battle on land and order bomb strikes from the air.
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What seemed simple on paper was, of course, a whole other another thing reality-wise. The captain and his men knew nothing of the Afghan terrain – one dotted T-72 tanks and missile launchers – or had the experience of riding horses, which was the only way to maneuver on this unfamiliar landscape of sand and mountains. Not only did the Americans have to practice diplomacy by cementing a bond with the Northern Alliance, they had to learn to fight Afghan-style to survive. And that saddling up.
It's a hell of a tale, and Danish director Nicolai Fuglsig, a former photojournalist and creator of award-winning TV commercials, had his work cut out for him. It had to look and feel real (the production shot in New Mexico), and the filmmaker certainly delivers. The action scenes pulsate with the hum of modern warfare. Credit Hemsworth for playing Nelson not as some Norse God out of Marvel fantasy (that's his day job) but as a man of courage forced to improvise on his feet or die trying. The rest of the cast also perform beyond the call of escapist duty. Michael Shannon is outstanding as the Chief Warrant Officer, a fighter who has seen combat, unlike his captain. Michael Pena and Trevante Rhodes – so good in the Oscar-winning Moonlight – also score as members of the team.
If you're thinking these characters are drawn in conventional lines by screenwriters Peter Craig and Oscar winner Ted Tally (Silence of the Lambs), you're not wrong. The script doesn't go much beyond the surface in establishing the camaraderie among these men who left their families to take on a battle still being fought. This is not a movie with time on its hands for character development or scrappy discussions of the politics involved on both sides. What 12 Strong does deliver, however, is a rousing tribute to the bravery of soldiers whose contributions went unheralded for years. That impact cannot be denied.
Photo: Warner Bros.
Movie Review Movie Review 12 Strong C+ Movie Review 12 Strong C+ C+ 12 Strong Director Nicolai Fuglsig Runtime 130 minutes Rating R Language English Cast Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Navid Negahban, Michael Peña, Trevante Rhodes, William Fichtner, Rob Riggle Availability Theaters everywhere January 19
It’s become Hollywood tradition to sound reveille at the start of the year with stories of heroic Navy SEALs, Green Berets, and CIA contractors aimed at putting red-state butts into seats, and close out with a quavering awards-season “Taps” of dutiful acknowledgements that war is, in fact, terrible. And so it goes with the dusty, Jerry Bruckheimer-produced 12 Strong (a title generic enough to be a sports drama), a squarely-in-the-former-category wartime adventure wannabe that turns a real Special Forces operation in Afghanistan into something that feels like warmed-over John Milius.
Adopting a wavering American accent, Chris Hemsworth stars as Mitch Nelson, a captain in the 5th Special Forces Group—the old stomping ground of John Rambo and Col. Kurtz—who leads his team into northern Afghanistan to assist an ethnic Uzbek warlord in the fight against the Taliban just a month after the 9/11 attacks. With only three weeks left before the coming winter freeze, Nelson and his men have their work cut out for them: make contact with the warlord, earn his trust, and help his ragtag militia recapture a village and breach the Tiangi Gap, a narrow ass-crack in the mountains that serves as a supply route from the Taliban stronghold of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Surprisingly stolid and barren for a Bruckheimer production, 12 Strong skates by on the virtues of an old-fashioned programmer: technical competence, an above-average cast, and well-written dialogue, the latter courtesy of screenwriters Ted Tally (The Silence Of The Lambs) and Peter Craig (Blood Father). The director, Nicolai Fuglsig, is a Danish former photojournalist who began his career covering radioactive pollution and the Kosovo War, which may explain the relative restraint. But perhaps it’s best to leave the flag-waving camo fantasies to the true believers. His action scenes are strictly perfunctory, kabooms of gunfire, tossed rubble, flipping trucks, and air strikes executed with the same sense of obligation that characterizes the movie’s Special Forces heroes.
Photo: Warner Bros.
Only three of the men under Nelson’s command leave an impression: Spencer (Michael Shannon), an experienced warrant officer who is relentlessly loyal to his untested, much younger captain; the fidgety but selfless Diller (Michael Peña); and the lollipop-sucking Milo (Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes), who ends up taking a shine to a bothersome local kid, as American servicemen in movies about war in the Middle East are wont to do. Not that these characters are all that well-developed (though there is a small, effective vignette early in the film with Spencer and his family), but at least the viewer might end up remembering their names. That’s more than can be said for the rest of the group, who are a blur of gear, injuries, orders, and wisecracks.
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One might argue that’s because it’s supposed to be about “the mission.” But what’s the mission about, anyway? For a war film, 12 Strong is short on conflict and adrenaline; it sings the praises of exceptional men, frontline camaraderie, and unlikely odds with all the passion of a grunt following orders. Like most exercises in January jingo, it’s a “true,” “declassified” story, adapted from Doug Stanton’s nonfiction book Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story Of A Band Of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory In Afghanistan—and like the rest of them, it’s about as real as a G.I. Joe action figure. American Sniper, the best of the lot, ignored Chris Kyle’s fabulism, forfeiting possible insight into the psychology of a self-made culture-wars hero. But at least it tried to depict the consequences of traumatic stress.
At the ill-defined center of 12 Strong is the relationship between Nelson and the film’s most Milius-ian character, Abdul Rashid Dostum (Navid Negahban), the aforementioned Uzbek warlord, portrayed as a figure of almost medieval nobility. As the expected end-titles epilogue helpfully announces, Dostum would later go on to become vice president of Afghanistan, though it fails to mention the fact that he is currently hiding out in Turkey to avoid prosecution for the kidnapping, rape, and torture of a political rival. Good people might find themselves fighting in wars, but they aren’t likely to lead them. 12 Strong, however, contents itself with peddling the same crap about pure valor and warrior ethos that’s been around since wars were actually fought on horseback—and it doesn’t even have the decency to reward viewers a rousing cavalry charge.
CLOSE The first trailer for '12 Strong,' starring Chris Hemsworth, the true story of Green Berets who ride into battle in Afghanistan after 9/11 on horses.
Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth, center) leads his Green Berets on horseback against Taliban fighters in '12 Strong.' (Photo: David James)
Sans magic hammer, Chris Hemsworth's career as a leading man is spotty at best. It seems he just needed horse co-stars.
The Thor star saddles up as an Army Special Forces captain in 12 Strong (★★½ out of four; rated R; in theaters nationwide Friday), a commendable war drama based on the first American military offensive in Afghanistan following 9/11.
Director Nicolai Fuglsig’s action film, based on Doug Stanton's 2009 book Horse Soldiers, isn't particularly innovative in terms of genre storytelling — gruff, scenery-chewing officers and homefront drama? Check and check. However, the movie successfully digs into the diplomacy of the time and mines the fragile emotions in those early days in the war on terror. Also in its favor: a thrilling battle with good guys on equine transport vs. an army of tanks and missile launchers.
After a couple years training with his unit of Green Berets, Capt. Mitch Nelson (played by Hemsworth) has transferred to a cushy desk job when he and his family watch in horror as two planes strike the World Trade Center. Even though he's never actually seen combat, Mitch fights to get redeployed with Chief Warrant Officer Hal Spencer (Michael Shannon) and the rest of his men, who all volunteer to head to Afghanistan as part of Task Force Dagger. The mission teams their elite squad with Afghan warlord Gen. Dostum (Navid Negahban) to take back Taliban-controlled locales, battle an enemy force of 50,000 combatants and deal a hefty blow to al-Qaeda.
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The rub? The Green Berets have to ride into conflict on horseback because of the mountains, and Mitch has to befriend Dostum and smooth over feelings when a parallel mission arises involving a rival general in the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.
Unlike his non-superhero star turns in Blackhat and the Huntsman movies, Hemsworth’s charisma and physical presence really pop here; in the insane situation of soldiers on horses facing off with an armored division, he at least looks strong enough to survive the experience. The hilly terrain offers spectacular views and an intriguing battlefield for the cast.
Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth, left) strategizes with Gen. Dostum (Navid Negahban) in the war drama '12 Strong.' (Photo: David James)
The distinct lack of character development in Ted Tally and Peter Craig’s adaptation doesn't help the various members of Mitch's Green Beret battalion: Most of them have more facial hair than personality. The exception is Moonlight standout Trevante Rhodes, whose sergeant develops a tight friendship with a young Afghan boy.
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What 12 Strong touches on in a real way, though fleetingly in order to get on with all that horse-on-tank action, is the commitment to service following the fateful day in 2001. Mitch and his troops don’t have to think hard about fighting back, yet they’re torn between duty and the families they’re choosing to leave behind. Mitch’s spouse (played by Hemsworth’s real-life wife, Elsa Pataky) takes it mostly in knowing stride, making him promise to return home, though Spencer’s offers a savage rebuke: “I will love you when you get back.”
There’s the necessary gripping emotion, for sure, and also the huge battleground set pieces a war drama demands, though 12 Strong goes a little too over the top with its action-packed climax — obviously, real horses couldn’t be used in the more harrowing danger, and the visual effects are iffy in certain moments. Hemsworth’s machismo is all real, though, and for two war-torn hours, you’ll forget about that iconic hammer of his.
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