A sub-par war movie

Rating: 6/10 (24 January 2018)

Ever since I first heard about this movie almost a year ago, I have had high expectations for this movie. After all it's a war movie with Chris Hemsworth based on a true story. How could it go wrong? Right? ... Wrong.
There are several things that war movies must have in order to be good and this movie failed in several categories. One facet of a war movie that absolutely must be present is realism. This is a category most war movies get right. This one did not. During the entire movie special forces troops blew away with their automatic weapons at Taliban bad guys and I only counted two times where a character reloaded. Now, I'm not going to complain if a movie like Fast and Furious is a little unrealistic with its reloading but in a movie like 12 Strong there needs to be frequent ammunition changes. Also, in the final battle Chris Hemsworth charges into the teeth of enemy tanks riding on horseback and somehow makes pin-point accuracy shots. The final battle scene felt very exaggerated and unrealistic. Now I realize that it is based on a "true story" but I guarantee that the movie touched up some things in an attempt to make a better movie. In a war movie, there needs to be a lot more gritty realism.
A second thing that bothered me about the movie was that the bad guy was honestly lame. They pretty much slapped in one scene to make sure you know that he is a ruthless killer. There needed to be more development present.
Finally, none of the action sequences were impressive or memorable and most of them centered around panning shots of B-52 bombing tanks which was pretty boring. I will never watch this again and I would not recommend it to anyone who is expecting a serious war movie.