176.
12 Strong
This movie is based on the real stories of the horse soldiers based in Afghanistan, which were sent out straight after the September 11th attacks. With a cast of Chris Hemsworth in the lead, Michael Shannon and Michael Pena, there a few familiar faces to help fans be drawn to the cinema. I didn't see too many trailers for this movie, so I'll be going in pretty blind and not knowing too much of the story. I do enjoy true events and real stories, so I could get into this one, as long as it doesn't go overboard. Could this be strong, or as bad as 12 Rounds?
Hemsworth plays an Army Captain, named Mitch Nelson, who recently moved into a new home with his family, just as the attacks in New York take place. He heads straight into office and volunteers to lead his old team into combat. Michael Shannon's character, Spencer, was due to retire and he also volunteers to go. After all the goodbyes, the team sets out to Uzbekistan to meet their Commander, who tells them that they are to fight alongside a Northern Alliance leader in the main attack. After heading in, riding a helicopter, hidden through the mountains, they meet up with their new allies and after being tested by this leader, half of the team leave on horses, towards the mountains. Dostum, the Alliance leader, wants to retake a city, which is critical to the war effort. After a few battles, Nelson accuses Dostum of not caring for the lives of his men. Dostum gives a speech about how his men are willing to die for his country and American's unwillingness for sacrifice means that they don't really care about the country. The soon become allies again, with the leader telling the American of how he lost his family during the civil war. Back in the other camp, Spencer leaders the remaining 6 up into the mountains to support the team.
We see plenty of action, guns, air support and even tanks, as the team make their way to the city that they need to take. There are trying to close trading routes and cutting off the supplies to the enemies, as best they can. After all of these tactical victories though, things take a turn. Dostum finds out that another team is support another Northern Alliance leader, who is Dostum's main political rival and after finding this out, he and his men abandon our team. Following this departure, Nelson decides to carry on with the main plan of stopping the supply routes to the main city and help the other leader to take the city. As they are in the mountains, they are set upon by snipers and one by one, they take injury or die. Ever the ones surrendering, are carrying grenades as one final assault on the Americans. Spencer is badly injured by the explosion, just as Dostum returns to fight with his allies and kill the enemy leader, repelling the Taliban forces. Dostum even meets with his rival and they peacefully shake hands. Spencer is medevac'd and the team head home after spending 23 days in combat. As the film draws to a close, we see a picture of the real team that this movie is based around.
The movie was really enjoyable, even gripping at times regarding the action scenes, especially the final fight. Each character seemed to bring their own unique qualities to the screen and the actor portraying them, done so very well. I don't know exactly how accurate this went along with the main story and there are complaints that the writers didn't really go into what the war was about too much, mainly focusing on the American side of things. It does take a little while to get into the fighting, with us being introduced to everyone and travelling into battle, but I suppose that if it wanted to tell the story of these men, we needed to know where they came from. Overall, the interesting fight scenes and seeing gun shots on horseback, was something that I haven't been able to truly witness before and knowing that these men actually done this, it is hard to realise that they received no hero's welcome, as this operation was mainly a secret and remained untold, until now.
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