12 Strong

Based on true events, 12 Strong details the exploits of the first Special Forces team deployed to Afghanistan after September 11, 2001 – with the film following the crew, led by Chris Hemsworth’s Mitch Nelson, as they encounter a wide variety of obstacles en route to their objective. It’s actually remarkable just how thoroughly and completely 12 Strong manages to alienate the viewer over the course of its punishing 130 minute runtime, as the movie suffers from an almost total dearth of positive elements that’s compounded by a bland visual sensibility and a hopelessly uninvolving storyline – with, in terms of the latter, scripters Ted Tally and Peter Craig delivering a repetitive narrative that skimps on character development and plot in favor of generic action sequences (ie there’s absolutely nothing here to connect to). And although filmmaker Nicolai Fuglsig has blanketed the proceedings with recognizable, reliable actors (eg Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, William Fichtner, etc, etc), 12 Strong‘s pervasively middle-of-the-road approach prevents the movie’s many familiar faces from establishing fully-formed, three-dimensional characters (ie there’s just a palpable sameness to all these people). The movie’s complete and total failure is cemented by a seemingly endless action-oriented climax, with its inability to stir even a micro-second of enthusiasm from the viewer indicative of the picture’s status as a massive, colossal trainwreck. (This is ultimately a strong contender for producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s very worst movie, which is certainly no small feat.)

1/2* out of ****