The devil is in the details, as is the magic that makes movies amazing, mesmerizing, and even classic. 12 Strong, while a serviceable movie, misses those marks by not lending to the project the care and respect that many OEF/OIF stories to film before it have. This story should have been put in better hands than it was and Jerry Bruckheimer should be near shame honestly.
The writing is fairly spot on in squad/platoon/team banter and dynamics, but character development, or even background, is basically non-existent. The rest feels bland and uninspired, which given there is an actual book for source material seems a bit lazy, if not downright disrespectful. The acting is average to above average in spots. And you can certainly tell most of them were never given actual training on operator movements, weapon systems, mannerisms, etc. Bad guys die in exactly the same poses and animations multiple times over. Good guys seem to fire indiscriminately. And no one EVER reloads their damn weapon. Except one time an hour and forty five minutes in. Effects and cinematography both range from great to complete B-movie levels. And the editing is garbage. Inconsistent shot to shot makeup, adding/subtracting sounds where unnecessary, time dilation errors.. you name it and an editing sin was committed.
Like I said, the details.
This movie with someone like Peter Berg, or god forbid Michael Bay (13 Hours), at the helm would have been far higher on the pegs of critique. As it stands however, it is an utterly average, mixed bag of a rah-rah film that in the end, deserved a better set of hands.
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