{"id":4215,"date":"2018-01-18T17:43:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T22:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/?p=4215"},"modified":"2018-01-18T17:43:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-18T22:43:57","slug":"12-strong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/?p=4215","title":{"rendered":"12 Strong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Directed by Nicolai Fuglsig<\/p>\n<p>Starring &#8211; Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, William Fichtner<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">THE PLOT<\/span> &#8211; The True Story of the Army&#8217;s Special Forces &#8220;Green Berets&#8221;, who within weeks responded to the 9-11 attack. Green Berets and AFSOC took over the country and allowed other Special Forces and the rest of the conventional military to begin the more publicly visible war.<\/p>\n<p>Rated R for war violence and adult language throughout<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-Denciie5oA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">THE POSITIVES<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; An impressive introduction sequence that is articulately narrated and edited through the days after America&#8217;s darkest hours. This history lesson paints a vivid reality of the eggshells that we as a country were walking on.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Exceptional camera angles that replicate a soldier&#8217;s point-of-view faithfully, through tight and over the back view points. This puts the audience in the moment without it being a gimmick like POV.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Action sequences while limited, are shot competently enough, with shreds of urgency that trigger the uneasy from the audience watching from beyond the screen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Speaking of action, the final twenty minutes pack a vibrating crescendo that never stops pumping. These sequences are so finely paced, and never run short of visual thrills.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The weaponry and combat versatility compliments a dual blend of traditional (Horseback strikes) and modern (Automatic arms) that superbly bridges the generations of war. We&#8217;re so used to seeing tanks and airstrikes that we rarely ever think about the countries who strike by horse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Fuglsig&#8217;s film never aims to be anything bigger that it rightfully is. While this is a brave and harrowing tale in the war against terror, the film reminds us that it is only the first chapter in a bigger war.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">THE NEGATIVES<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; There&#8217;s too much talk and not enough action during the first half of the film. This is when the movie dragged the most for me, and felt the demands of a 125 minute runtime.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; There&#8217;s an attempt to understand the villain&#8217;s perspective, but it&#8217;s every single Taliban antagonist that CNN has ever painted for you. There&#8217;s nothing that makes them standout in a poignant approach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; This film needs so desperately for someone to take the reigns as a reputable performance, but the underwritting of personality in this script disappointingly wastes what is an early favorite for best ensemble cast of 2018. There&#8217;s ultimately no diversity in this brotherhood, so many of the characters rub together without breaking free from their shackles of ambiguity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The second half of the film is definitely much more impactful, but it comes at the price of abandoning character exposition. Beyond even the soldiers, Hemsworth&#8217;s wife and kids are never brought back up again after the opening ten minutes, leaving behind a chance to finally capitalize on a soldier&#8217;s price paid back home that very few war films capitalize on.<\/p>\n<p>6\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Directed by Nicolai Fuglsig Starring &#8211; Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, William Fichtner THE PLOT &#8211; The True Story of the Army&#8217;s Special Forces &#8220;Green Berets&#8221;, who within weeks responded to the 9-11 attack. Green Berets and AFSOC took over the country and allowed other Special Forces and the rest of the conventional military to begin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,4,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4217,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4215\/revisions\/4217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}