”12 Strong” is a strong war film

By Erik Jimenez

In the tradition of recent January war film such as “Lone Survivor,” “American Sniper,” and “13 Hours,” “12 Strong” brings up an amazing true story about our wars in the middle east and the soldiers who fought in them. The film differentiates itself from the others by telling the declassified true story of CIA paramilitary officers and U.S. Special Forces, in addition to USAF Combat Controllers sent to Afghanistan the day after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer (whose last war film of this caliber was “Black Hawk Down”) brings in Danish filmmaker Nicholas Fuglsig for his first feature film debut as well as Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, in the lead role.

Like “13 Hours,” the film’s perspective of the story is from the book “Horse Soldiers” by Doug Stanton who executive produces.

When it comes to the character work, the film is solid all around. Chris Hemsworth’s Captain Mitch Nelson is a much different role from Thor. It puts him in a unique situation where he has to show a more intelligent side to him. He is less humorous in this film, opting instead for a Courageous leadership position that manages to stay believable. Michael Shannon plays Nelson’s Chief Warrant Officer Spencer, very well mainly due to the interactions between him and Hemsworth which come off as authentic. Michael Pena is great as Sergeant Diller. He mainly gets all the funny lines and has a good back and forth with Trevante Rhodes’ Sergeant Milo.

One of the best things about the film is that since it mainly focuses on these characters, it feels rather personal even though it is implied throughout the film that the mission we are seeing with this team is just one of many going on at the same time. Combined with the eventual fact that the whole operation in the film was essentially the first battle the still ongoing War in Afghanistan lends a larger than life scope despite its 35-million-dollar budget, which is lower than usual for films like this.

The action is well shot and easy to understand thanks to the editing and cinematography giving us the landscape and area of the battles allowing us to tell how far apart the members of the OVA team are to each other and to the Taliban forces. It’s a very gritty, somewhat grounded style of filmmaking that especially reminded me of “Black Hawk Down.”

The effects look majority practical. Very little CGI seems to be in the film. If there were they were unnoticeable which I give props to the effects team.

If you like war films, specifically films about the wars in the Middle East, and more specifically any of the previous films I have mentioned before in this review, this is definitely up your ally. It was certainly up mine’s.

4 stars out of 5