The morals of choices

Rating: 8/10 (29 March 2014)

A tale of morality and war.
A team of American soldiers on an undercover mission in Afghanistan. They are well trained, prepared and have all the necessary equipment. As they advance towards the village of a high ranking Al-Qaeda they take cover in the woods. All seem to go according to plan.
Then everything changes. An old man with couple of children, all goat herders, arrive on that very spot. Ideally the soldiers did not want to be seen but they are and thus capture the passersby. Whilst on some level it would make sense to kill them, the captain of the team decides to let them go knowing that their cover will be blown.
Little did those soldiers knew how swiftly their situation will reverse. The released captives informed the fellow villagers in a matter of few moments and the US soldiers become utterly helpless and overwhelmed.
The training and sophistication of the American soldiers proved futile to the street wise gut instinct of the Taliban.
Moral choices and reversal of fortune become very intertwined. Just as audience we somehow anticipated the usual war/action film the whole situation and reality changes from controlled to desperate in a fight to the very end.
Well worth seeing, both as a viewing experience as well as an initiator of a post film moral discussion.