'12 Strong' is story of task force under fire
Proudly and narrowly, “12 Strong” is a good-news war story, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by first-time feature director Nicolai Fuglsig, of Denmark. He trained as a photojournalist, and covered the war in Kosovo; in the last decade Fuglsig’s commercial resume includes sleek, digitally savvy and action-oriented spots for Corvette and Xbox Halo 4, among other clients.
“12 Strong” is a good-news story, in that the facts and personnel constitute an early victory over the Taliban — not a comprehensive or lasting one, but a victory nonetheless. In the weeks following the destruction of the World Trade Center, as part of the Bush administration’s Operation Enduring Freedom, a 12-man U.S. Army Special Forces task force, code-named Task Force Dagger, was flown and then dropped into northern Afghanistan.
The mission was simple, the process, complicated. The Green Berets were charged with joining and advising Northern Alliance tribal warlords and their troops, fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida. The strategic early battle involved control of the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. With U.S. Air Force bombing support, and American soldiers traversing some extremely treacherous mountain terrain on horseback en route, the results were decisive. Also, the optics were terrific. The movie includes the moment when then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held up the picture of the “horse soldiers” (this was in late 2001) and found them very useful in selling the early stages of the war in Afghanistan.
The stalwart cast is led by Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth. He plays the group’s captain, here named Mitch Nelson (based loosely on the real-life Mark Nutsch). Michael Shannon, in a shrewdly modulated turn, plays Chief Warrant Officer Hal Spencer, based on Bob Pennington. Trevante Rhodes, Michael Pena, William Fichtner and Rob Riggle work their scenes to advantage, though screenwriters Ted Tally and Peter Craig often seem stranded in a no-man’s land between quasi-documentary reality and reassuring Hollywood cliche.
The key relationship here is between Nelson and Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum of the Northern Alliance, played by Navid Negahban of “Homeland.” The former’s characterization is familiar, stripped of detail and, as written and depicted here, Our American Hero, period. Dostum, by contrast, is the most interesting element of “12 Strong,” which probably should’ve added up in its title to 13. Scenes that seem far-fetched, such as Dostum goading the Taliban forces by telephone moments before an air strike, actually happened. For the script’s purposes, however, Dostum is there to remind Nelson that he can be more than a soldier; if he fights from the heart, he will become the warrior this war needs to vanquish their common foe.
Much of the action, as shot by Fuglsig and cinematographer Rasmus Videbaek and edited by Lisa Lassek, favors clear, adrenaline-pumping action beats and rousing, against-all-odds triumphs. Throughout the film, we’re reminded of the peculiarity of fighting men on horseback going up against all manner of military hardware. It’s not a bad movie, as far as it goes. In terms of context, though, it goes virtually nowhere.
No war movie can tell more than one primary story and a few underneath that one. “12 Strong” sticks to the basics, without much interest in the differentiating specifics of the men involved, or anything on a geopolitical scale beyond the impulse these Special Forces veterans shared in the wake of 9-11. It seems to me a qualified, limited success.
