12 Strong

Every year around Oscar time we get a big American war film hitting the cinema. In the last few years we've had Hacksaw Ridge, 13 Hrs, Fury, Lone Survivor, American Sniper and now this film, 12 Strong. The story of the first American soldiers to be boots down on enemy sand in the weeks after the September 11th attacks.

12 soldiers known as Task Force Dagger and headed by Captain Mitch Nelson are inserted into Afghanistan 5 weeks after the attack and their objective is to meet up an Afghan warlord, General Dostum and help him and his men to take the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in order to stop the Taliban from digging in and spreading their influence around the land. Sounds like a new take on the 9/11 story? Sounds interesting right? Ya it's really not.

One late scene aside it's just nothing you haven't seen before. Like Lone Survivor and American Sniper it's the same jingoistic, patriotic, America Fuck Yeah!! stuff all over again. It's about purity facing off against evil, an evil distilled down to one man in a painfully obvious scene. Thankfully it's not as po-faced as those others but that's down to it's cast. Well a few of them anyway. The film may as well have been called 3 Strong tbh. The film's leads are played by the immensely likable Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon and Michael Peña and they are the only ones that get any bit of depth. The other soldiers are as faceless as the Taliban soldiers they use for cannon fodder. Navid Negahban as Dostum is the only non American to get any screen time either. He's not bad and brings a bit of needed gravitas to the film.

There's a lot of war films around. They've always been popular, I for one love em but these days we need something new. Something we haven't seen before or heard before. Cramming a film full of lines like "If we quit now what happened back home is going to happen again and again." "Don't you quit on us!!" never helps. It's dialogue by numbers. Old hat. Cliche all over the shop. You're supposed to care about these men and half hearted stuff like this isn't going to help. There's nothing to hold onto. There's no one to care about. A few years ago audiences would have been more forgiving but sadly America these days has lost it's place in people's hearts. Being a yank isn't a reason to want a character to succeed anymore.

I sound very down on this but there was one saving grace. An action scene near the end of the film that somehow hits the mark. A full on gung-ho ride towards the enemy that despite yourself you'll be caught up in. It's like it's from a different film from an earlier age and that's why it works. It's stupid and ridiculously far fetched, An orgy of blood squibs, oily smoke and explosions that feels like the love child of The Magnificent Seven and Chuck Norris's Delta Force. It's a crowd pleasing moment that works while feeling totally at odds with the rest of the film. The earlier parts of the film are full of gunfights and skirmishes but repetition causes them to blend into one. This stands out because it's fun. And the fact that I've described it as fun opens up a whole other can of worms doesn't it. Eek.

You won't miss anything if you don't go see this. An excellent 10 minute action scene in a 130 min film just isn't good enough. Save your cash. It will be on Netflix soon enough.