A good movie

To be honest, it seemed to be a rather obscure war movie involving some B-list actors so I kept postponing it for a while. However, since I had it seemingly for years on my queue, I thought I should finally watch the damned thing. Well, I was actually surprised by how solid it actually turned out to be after all. It actually reminded me of ‘Warfare’ which I saw maybe a month ago (in fact, Taylor John Smith was in both movies). Indeed, both movies went for a really visceral realistic gritty approach which I really did appreciate. I was also surprised that Orlando Bloom, the most famous actor of the bunch, was killed off within the first 15 mins but, even if it was a bold choice, it displayed how completely random war can be.  The big difference was, with this movie, I understood more what was the actual mission of these soldiers. However, just like in ‘Warfare’, even though the soldiers were seemingly competent and really brave (most of them or even all of them did receive some medals, they even became the most decorated unit of this war), it all felt so pointless though. Indeed, right from the start, it was pointed out that this outpost was completely undefendable, in fact, it was pretty much a suicide mission. Eventually, I think they should show this movie to young men (and women) who want to become soldiers. I mean, it’s one thing to want to fight for a good cause (which was already highly disputable when you talk about the wars in Afghanistan and Irak) but do you really want to be sent on a mission with no purpose whatsoever and for which there is a fair chance that you might die? The other ironic thing when you watch this movie was that, after a whopping 20 years, the US army finally left Afghanistan and, within weeks, the Taliban took over the country as if nothing had changed during these 2 decades making the whole thing even more pointless than it already was. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was maybe not a masterpiece, I thought it was actually pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

7/10