12 Strong (2018)

I'm not the biggest fan of war movies and I usually avoid them, especially when I haven't heard much about them, whether it's good or bad things. 12 Strong stars Chris Hemsworth though and there's also Michael Shannon in it so I gave it a chance. 

The film tells the true story of a US Special Forces team, led by Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth), who, weeks after 9/11, was sent into Afghanistan to retaliate. There they form an alliance with an Afgan warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum (Navid Negahban), in order to fight a common enemy, the Taliban, and secure the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif. And they have to face off tanks and rockets on horseback.

And that's basically the reason 12 Strong was made, to bring to the screen a heroic and inspiring true story which to me, someone who is not American, looks like yet another propaganda against the Middle East and Islam in general that highlights how Americans saved another country and civilians from terrorists. 

If I were to leave that out, 12 Strong still wouldn't be nothing but a barely average war movie. The story isn't consistently engaging. It's interesting at first but it eventually becomes quite boring, and if it wasn't for Hemsworth's charisma, I would have probably stopped watching. Also, the story isn't even that moving. 

The characters are pretty basic and by that I mean that we learn pretty much nothing about them, with the three main characters being three strangers to us. We learn that they all have a family, period. They have no depth whatsoever and it's kind of hard to care about for them.

In spite of the lacklustre screenplay, the actors do a pretty good job overall. As I mentioned above, Hemsworth is charismatic and makes for a pretty good lead; Michael Shannon is a bit underused but he's great as always and Michael Peña brings some comic relief. 

Warner Bros. Pictures, Lionsgate

The action, on the other hand, is pretty good. If you are expecting 2 hours of pure action, you'll be disappointed. If you are expecting some intense and realistic action sequences, you won't be disappointed. It's a little confusing to watch at times because of the shaky camera you can't always tell who is who, but the sequences are pretty good.

Overall, 12 Strong isn't a terrible movie but it's definitely too long and quite boring. If you want to see something more compelling, watch Michael Bay's 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.