It's a start.

Rating: 4/10 (28 July 2018)

Having served in Afghanistan and familiar with the geography of the movie there is the overall disappointment of not having anything filmed which is even close to the amazing topography of Mazir - I learned nothing about the beginnings of operation enduring freedom other than all this took place in the north - which I did not know. As well - I was not aware of this first effort in the US response to September 11 and the quasi collaborative approach to an attempt on Al Qaeda. Nice to know.
Otherwise the plot is just a handwritten-on-a-napkin approach to a logistically complicated effort without any depth - Action! - special Forces Identified, 9/11 happens, sad goodbye to family, insertion to country, three campaigns to deliver air support, bad guy identified by killing women, good guy suffers sucking chest wound, bad guy gets it, everyone makes it out alive, warm hello to family, actual group photo during credits - scene!
One hopes that eventually the likes of Spielberg, Stone, Kubrick and Coppola will bring their warcraft to these middle eastern operations - ( though we do have Three Kings, Zero Dark Thirty and Restrepo ) but this was never WWII or vietnam - this was "war during pokemon and Halo II" - a better story than 12 strong has been told by Phil Klay's "redeployment" and in such tales I believe we will find the seminal storylines of the Bush era wars.