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12 Strong (2018), R, ★★★


9/11 is an unfortunate tragedy that sunk Americans' hearts across the country. We did not give up as a nation to not solely rebuild New York, but to rebuild the country and trying to get the enemies to pay for their doing. We had the underrated Michael Bay movie, 13 Hours, where despite of the prolonged fighting sequence at the base, it was well-acted and well-told. Now, we have another de-classified true story about another group of soldiers defying the odds. I believe that this a more well-told and well-crafted movie than 13 Hours for its taut action sequences and chemistry between the characters despite some bad moments of dialogue.

Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth) along with his wife, Jean (Elsa Pataky) and daughter, Maddy (Marie Wagenmen) sees footage of 9/11 when the hijacked planes have crashed into the World Trade Center Towers. Because of his retirement papers being filed, Nelson has a tough time with Lt. Colonel Max Bowers (Rob Riggle) to be on a team to go to Afghanistan. The Warrant Officer, Hal Spencer (Michael Shannon) rips the retirement papers and saying that he and his team is more than qualified to run this mission and Nelson is re-enlisted as captain of the squad.

Nelson, Spencer and the other team - Sam Diller (Michael Peña), Ben Milo (Trevante Rhodes), Sean Coffers (Geoff Stults), Vern Michaels (Thad Luckinbill), Fred Falls (Austin Stowell), Scott Black (Ben O'Toole), Pat Essex (Austin Hebert), Kenny Jackson (Kenneth Miller), Bill Bennett (Kenny Sheard) and Charles Jones (Jack Kesy) meet with Colonel Jack Mulholland (William Fichtner) to be debriefed on their mission. They are ordered to take the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in order to stop the Taliban from spreading their forcers around the land and also to take down Bin Laden. The soldiers team up with General Dostum (David Neghaban) to take down the Taliban.


This is a well-constructed, concise movie in which it bogs down to the characters, the mission, the purpose and the conclusion. That's it, there is emotional depth because we already know by the execution of the movie. However, there is not much depth themselves as they are archetypes of characters we have seen from other war movies. I appreciate that the cast is committed to the project doing what they are supposed to be told but somehow they seem to like go to work and do their thing by shooting their hardware but not develop their characters.

Nevertheless, all of the cast give solid performances as I bought Chris Hemsworth in the main role and again knows how to get away from the classic type-cast of heroes. This is a real hero in a real story that knows his job. He is dedicated along with the cast, Peña, Riggle, Rhodes, Stowell, etc. Plus, I think Brian Neghaban is quite compelling in this role as you think he might switch to the other side and go on to auto-pilot. But, maybe a minor spoiler, no. Thanks to director Nicolai Fuglsig, he pays tribute to the acts of heroism and soldiers for their service. Plus, because of its craft, it is thanks to produced Jerry Bruckheimer who knows how to sell these action war films. It's not quite up there with Black Hawk Down, which is an underrated great movie by Ridley Scott, but I admired the production and all of their efforts to make a decent war movie. Despite the flaws in its narrative and character development, I recommend it.

***


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