Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

12 Strong Blu-ray Movie Review

130 Minutes Weak

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 11, 2018

Like most contemporary films, 12 Strong lists numerous producers, reflecting the complex financial cooperation underlying today's studio projects. But in both name and substance, this plodding tale is a Jerry Bruckheimer production, another in the veteran producer's long line of tributes to big military hardware and courage under fire. Some of those efforts have become classics of the genre; one thinks of Top Gun and Black Hawk Down. Others missed the target, notably the costly and oversold Pearl Harbor, which reduced one of America's most painful military defeats to a combination of special effects and soap opera. 12 Strong is cut from the same cloth as Pearl Harbor, and it even borrows the earlier film's most dubious narrative device, which is to elevate an early engagement to near-mythic status, overlooking the years of bloody toil and painful sacrifice that would follow. In Pearl Harbor, it was the Doolittle Raid, which inflicted only minor harm on Japan but boosted American morale with a symbolic victory. In 12 Strong, it's a successful operation in Afghanistan by a Special Forces unit in the days immediately following 9/11.

But it was one thing to make the Doolittle Raid a stand-in for the rest of World War II's Pacific theater so that Pearl Harbor could end on an upbeat note. That war was over, and our side had won. It's an entirely different matter with the American campaign in Afghanistan, which, at fifteen years and counting, is still being waged with no end in sight. The heroic efforts to achieve the limited objective depicted in 12 Strong are not diminished by acknowledging that those actions only paved the way for vast expenditures of American blood and treasure spanning three presidential administrations, with multiple changes in commanders and strategy—none of which has produced anything remotely resembling a victory (or even a consensus on what "victory" would look like). When Bruckheimer and director Nicolai Fuglsig end 12 Strong with the return of the mission's commander to his family, the moment is meant to be triumphant and inspirational, but it falls flat, because it elides the thousands who did not come home in the succeeding years, not to mention the thousands who remain in harm's way today.

Captain Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth) is moving into a new home with his family when he sees the TV images of the Twin Towers in flames. He immediately insists on being returned to active duty commanding Operational Detachment Alpha ("ODA") 595, where he is joined by Hal Spencer (Michael Shannon), Sam Diller (Michael Peña) and nine other soldiers who are so poorly individuated that they are effectively interchangeable. (Only Nelson, Spencer and Diller are shown at home with their families.) The unit is deployed to assist an Afghan warlord, General Dostum (Navid Negahban), in retaking the city of Mazar-i Sharif from the Taliban, whose forces are commanded by Mullah Razzan (Numan Acar). We know that Razzan is a bad guy, because he wears black and is shown brutalizing the civilian population, but he's also a personal enemy of Dostum's, along with every other warlord in the region.

The major challenge for Nelson's unit is that the mountainous terrain by which they have to approach Mazar-i Sharif can only be navigated on horseback, and except for Nelson, no one in the unit has riding experience. The book on which the film was based is entitled Horse Soldiers, and 12 Strong might have been a better film if it had taken more time to explore the challenges of transforming eleven tenderfeet into riders skilled enough to guide their unfamiliar steeds along the steep and narrow paths leading to their objective. But this obstacle is quickly glossed over in favor of logistical gobbledygook, displays of heavy weaponry and contests of manhood between Nelson and Dostum.

12 Strong's script is credited to Ted Tally (The Silence of the Lambs) and Peter Craig (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay 1 and 2), but since this is a Bruckheimer project, it almost certainly passed through a small army of uncredited hands. What emerged was a series of generic battle scenes that quickly lose any connection to a sense of strategic overview, despite the numerous titles listing places, unit IDs and number of days "in country". Director Fuglsig, who has only one other feature film to his credit, is overwhelmed by the sheer number of characters and the rapidly shifting geography. He can't decide where to focus the viewer's attention, and the battle pyrotechnics take over the film, because they're the loudest, brightest and most memorable elements onscreen. When Razzan's forces are ultimately defeated (and General Dostum takes his personal revenge), there's no sense of triumph or accomplishment, because the film has lost track of what the battle was all about. The filmmakers try to cover their bases by regularly inserting reminders, such as a speech by Diller (who was—conveniently—a history teacher in civilian life) about how Afghanistan is the unconquerable graveyard of empires. But such moments only serve to underline the fundamental paradox of 12 Strong, as it tries to extract patriotic uplift from the most intractable military quagmire in American history.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates 12 Strong's tone-deafness than its opening, a montage of news clips meant to provide a quick overview of the rise of Al Qaeda under the shelter and protection of the Taliban. It concludes with none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin recounting how he warned the American President before 9/11 that he was "very worried", because "[t]hey are planning something"—something "big". It shouldn't be surprising when a film that casts Putin, of all people, as America's concerned friend quickly loses sight of the bigger picture.

12 Strong Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

12 Strong was shot digitally by Danish cinematographer Rasmus Videbæk (The Dark Tower), on the Arri Alexa, if IMDB is to be believed. The image on Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded disc has the sharpness and detail that are the hallmarks of digital capture, and the color grading has not succumbed to the temptation to cast a tinted wash over the frame. As a result, the spectacular landscapes—shot in the mountains of New Mexico as a stand-in for Afghanistan—have been reproduced in such variegated splendor that they're often more interesting than the trite characters and minimalist plot. The scenes "in country" are dominated by dusty earth tones, except at night, when the palette shifts to dark blues and deep blacks. Fine detail is so good that you can appreciate the increasing layers of grime (and blood) on the faces of the actors, as they progress from one engagement to the next. Contrast is excellent throughout and never overstated, even with the copious weapons fire and explosions of bombs, rockets and artillery.

Following its now-familiar practice of reserving its best mastering for its worst films, Warner has encoded 12 Strong with an average bitrate of 34.16 Mbps, which puts the disc in the generous compression territory usually reserved for the Warner Archive Collection.

12 Strong Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The end credits for 12 Strong list a Dolby Digital 7.1 mix, but the Blu-ray's soundtrack is limited to 5.1, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. Even without the additional two surround channels, the mix is every bit as lively and active as one would expect from a modern-day war epic, with the roar and rumble of heavy machinery testing the subwoofer and the sounds of bullets whizzing back and forth through the room. Dialogue is sometimes buried in the mix, which is particularly unfortunate in the film's opening sections when the squad is being introduced; since I didn't see the film theatrically, I cannot say whether this is a Blu-ray flaw or a reflection of the original mix. The martial-flavored adventure score is by Lorne Balfe, who provided similar service for 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.

12 Strong Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras have a degree of credibility that 12 Strong itself is lacking, thanks to the involvement of several real soldiers who participated in the operation portrayed in the film.

• 12 Strong: The Making of an Impossible Mission (1080p; 1.78:1; 22:05): Members of ODA 595 and its commander discuss their mission, and Jerry Bruckheimer discusses his movie, supported by members of the cast and crew.



• Monumental Effort: Building America's Response Monument (1080p; 1.78:1; 10:13): Sculptor Douwe Blumberg recounts the history of the monument he created to celebrate the accomplishments of the Horse Soldiers of ODA 595, which now stands at Ground Zero in New York City.



• Introductory Trailer: The film's trailer is not included, but, in an incongruous juxtaposition, at startup the disc plays a trailer promoting Warner's comedy flop, Father Figures.

12 Strong Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you want to learn something about the heroism of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, watch the documentary Restrepo and its sequel, Korengal. If you're interested in the exploits of ODA 595, read author Doug Stanton's original book, Horse Soldiers. But if you want to see cardboard characters reciting trite dialogue before charging into simulated battle, then by all means watch 12 Strong. It's a competent Blu-ray, but the film is so shallow that it borders on offensive.