War movies are one of my favorite types of movie genres is war films, but I still like this movie even though it is not a good war film, but more of an emotional drama, with lots of bullets flying to pacify the person enjoys war flicks.
The name is ridiculous. The tactics displayed in this movie having nothing to do with Special Forces. Special Forces units do not behave at all like they did in this film, with the exception of being brave. The opening scene shows a stealth interdiction team pouncing on an warlords compound in Kosovo, yet while they have gained surprise in the middle of the interdiction four helicopters converge on the compound. Why? So the enemy can turn and run? Why do the stealth portion if your going to do a "smash and grab"? Then the main plot of extracting a female reporter makes no sense. In this mission they come in stealthy, extract the target, and have no support whatsoever once the mission has been "completed" and the extraction is over. Why? Ummm, I have no idea, I guess because "all" of their radios were damaged? Huh? Why would loosing your radios stop the extraction process? Regardless of radio contact they would have an extraction meet-up point. They do not determine these locations on the fly, in fact they will have several options to choose from during the mission. Yet the French military did not meet them anywhere.
Their fighting tactics were extremely flawed as well as many have already pointed out. So why did I enjoy this film? Certainly not from its military standpoint, that's for sure. The human elements of the film were strong. There was one scene where they go back and fight for a village that assisted them (ala Tears of the Sun), and the dedication of the men to each other as well as completing the mission. The reporters attachment to the soldiers is compelling as well because she did not naturally align herself with them initially being a liberal reporter.
The entire chase scenario simply never did make any sense from why they were abandoned in the first place, to why they stopped and fought on two occasions, but ran during the rest of the film, and how the Taliban forces made it across the mountain range with next to no gear. In fact in one scene, the leader of the team announced, "Welcome to Afghanistan.", when in fact they had just left Afghanistan!
But all of the military "Rambo'ish" triflings are just window dressings to a movie about the human spirit, and why people will live and die for others they barely even know, and I found that side of the film compelling. If you want to see a good movie about Special Forces, watch "Act of Valour". If you want to watch an action adventure that has a lot of shooting, but your girlfriend might actually enjoy, Special Forces is your choice :)
The name is ridiculous. The tactics displayed in this movie having nothing to do with Special Forces. Special Forces units do not behave at all like they did in this film, with the exception of being brave. The opening scene shows a stealth interdiction team pouncing on an warlords compound in Kosovo, yet while they have gained surprise in the middle of the interdiction four helicopters converge on the compound. Why? So the enemy can turn and run? Why do the stealth portion if your going to do a "smash and grab"? Then the main plot of extracting a female reporter makes no sense. In this mission they come in stealthy, extract the target, and have no support whatsoever once the mission has been "completed" and the extraction is over. Why? Ummm, I have no idea, I guess because "all" of their radios were damaged? Huh? Why would loosing your radios stop the extraction process? Regardless of radio contact they would have an extraction meet-up point. They do not determine these locations on the fly, in fact they will have several options to choose from during the mission. Yet the French military did not meet them anywhere.
Their fighting tactics were extremely flawed as well as many have already pointed out. So why did I enjoy this film? Certainly not from its military standpoint, that's for sure. The human elements of the film were strong. There was one scene where they go back and fight for a village that assisted them (ala Tears of the Sun), and the dedication of the men to each other as well as completing the mission. The reporters attachment to the soldiers is compelling as well because she did not naturally align herself with them initially being a liberal reporter.
The entire chase scenario simply never did make any sense from why they were abandoned in the first place, to why they stopped and fought on two occasions, but ran during the rest of the film, and how the Taliban forces made it across the mountain range with next to no gear. In fact in one scene, the leader of the team announced, "Welcome to Afghanistan.", when in fact they had just left Afghanistan!
But all of the military "Rambo'ish" triflings are just window dressings to a movie about the human spirit, and why people will live and die for others they barely even know, and I found that side of the film compelling. If you want to see a good movie about Special Forces, watch "Act of Valour". If you want to watch an action adventure that has a lot of shooting, but your girlfriend might actually enjoy, Special Forces is your choice :)