Saddle up, it’s all guns blazing . . .
DANISH director Nicolai Fuglsig’s 12 Strong comes at war from an entirely different angle to Last Flag Flying (see left), unashamedly glorifying it in a film that unfolds uncomfortably like a slab of U.S. propaganda, with one entirely superfluous scene included to demonstrate the terrible depravity of the nation’s enemies.
The film tells the undoubtedly rousing true story of a Special Forces mission in Afghanistan. Shortly after the 9/11 atrocities, the 12-man unit was sent to engage the Taliban and Al Qaeda — a daring attack in alliance with an antiTaliban Afghan warlord and his men, which concluded, because of the mountainous terrain, on horseback.
Chris Hemsworth plays the leading alpha male, the group’s rugged leader, Captain Mitch Nelson, with Michael Shannon and Michael Pena as two of his cohorts. But this is also the sort of film that wouldn’t be complete without tear-jerking farewells and homecomings; Hemsworth’s real-life wife, Elsa Pataky, plays the on-screen Mrs Nelson.
Fuglsig, who was once a war photographer, has a predictably good eye for battle — the skirmishes and ambushes look pretty realistic to me — but perhaps not such a good ear. The script, adapted by Ted Tally and Peter Craig from a book called Horse Soldiers, presents our not-so dirty dozen not merely as intrepid warriors but also philosophers, wits and, of course, loving family men, oozing compassion and testosterone in equal measure.
They’ll adore all this in Pittsburgh; maybe less so in Pontefract.