A missed opportunity

Rating: 6/10 (24 January 2018)

12 STRONG had an interesting premise going for it - the true life, just released, top secret mission of the first Special Forces unit to be deployed in Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attack. All set to conduct "traditional" warfare, these soldiers must learn to adapt to a different sort of war being waged in the caves and cliffs surrounding them - including fighting tanks while on horseback!
And...with charismatic screen performers like Chris Hemsworth, Michael Pena, Trevante Rhodes, and (especially) Michael Shannon, the ingredients were there for a strong film.
Unfortunately, Director Nicolai Fuglsig (in what is, in essence, his big screen debut as a Director) and Writers Ted Tally and Peter Craig squander this opportunity and present a fairly bland, fairly generic action/adventure flick reminiscent of the Chuck Norris Vietnam flicks of the 1980's (like MISSING IN ACTION or THE DELTA FORCE).
Not only that, but with a film entitled 12 STRONG, you would expect the 12 soldiers to be an interesting group of characters (a la THE DIRTY DOZEN or ALIENS), unfortunately, this should have been called Chris Hemsworth plus 3 and a bunch of glorified extras. The lion's share of this film follows Hemsworth's rookie Captain develop into a "warrior". This is an interesting character played by a charismatic actor and would have been more interesting had we not spent a vast majority of the film with him. After awhile I wanted to yell at the screen - "All right! I get it! He has to learn how to kill without losing his humanity". Also featured in this group are Michael Pena as the "Gung-Ho GI" of the group (with a smart mouth, of course) and Trevante Rhodes (following his breakout performance in MOONLIGHT) who befriends a young, local boy (you can guess how that goes). Both of these character arcs play out rather predictably. But the biggest sin in this film is the misuse of the great Michael Shannon as the 2nd in command. Perhaps Shannon's schedule did not allow more use of him, but he was barely in this film and what time he was used it was well below his abilities of an actor - a major disappointment.
To this film some slack, the action is serviceable which makes it worth watching - an element that elevates this mediocre film to something just north of that.
If you're looking for an escape from the January cold, you could do worse, an enjoyable - enough - 2 hours in the theater.
Letter Grade: B-
6 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank(OfMarquis)