Forces spéciales

Co-written and directed by Stephane Rybojad, this debut feature is impressive and remarkable considering the sheer logistics involved in having it filmed in Tajikistan passing off as Afghanistan and its tribal borders where the film was primarily set. Rybojad cut his teeth with countless of documentaries, some of which involved the French special forces, so to say that he brings a degree of realism to the film is an understatement, having first hand knowledge about the weapons and tactics, despite having to weave a fictional tale around it that will appeal to a broad audience.

With a host of rifle weaponry, high-tech equipment and decked to the nines by smaller arms to larger ones like the Super Puma choppers (amongst others) and boasting even an aircraft carrier, some may be quick to claim that the film is nothing but propaganda for the French armed forces. But that can be so far from the truth, because what Rybojad had done is to provide a tale about humanity both good and evil, and the dilemma that anyone entrusted with a life and death situation to deal with almost on a constant basis. With just gun battles alone one may be better off with a computer game, but the story here, no matter how standard and cliché at times it may seem, worked without attempting to do more than it's capable of, knowing its limits and sticking very much to its strengths, despite having its final act a little bit clunky and a pivotal scene that turned out to be quite unbelievable in terms of geography, but with narrative films there's always the element of chance and coincidence otherwise nothing would actually happen.

While it's not everyday that we get to see a French action film, and one based on a uniformed group at that (the last being the GIGN in the film The Assault, which is based on a factual, historical incident), and this one in some ways reminded me of the Hollywood film Tears of the Sun by Antoine Fuqua. Both films feature a group of special forces troopers being tasked with an extraction mission, only to come face to face with a numerically superior opposition, having to battle the enemy while protecting their mark, and having the latter female and strong willed and at times at loggerheads with the mission objective, influencing how the troopers will function as a unit and having to constantly review whether they should just follow orders, or go about on a wider humanitarian mission that doesn't betray the conscience.

There's no Bruce Willis here, but Djimon Hounsou takes the charge as the leader of a group of six men in total tasked with a reconnaissance mission at first to uncover the whereabouts of the kidnapped journalist Elsa (Diane Kruger), before having their mission immediately turned to one of extraction. It may seem like an open and shut, routine mission with highly skilled, trained and equipped men balancing the odds of being numerically disadvantage, if not for Michael Cooper and Stephane Rybojad's story throwing a spanner in the works by taking out all their communications equipment very early on, rendering a change in their LZ impossible, and being left to their own devices to escape from Elsa's Taliban captors who are fast closing in on them. The structure here may seem similar to Tears, but it doesn't come with any requisite twists and turns. In fact the enemy may well be the harsh terrain and sub zero temperatures the group has to battle against, and for those pampered by things blowing up in the first half of the film, this portion on may seem like an anti-climax, especially when the story seemed to lose its tight grip on the plot, and made concessions to allow for closure.

The introduction was what set the stage with a glimpse of how tight the Special Forces work, flying in with their choppers on a mission to capture a war criminal, and a number of set action pieces to whet the appetites of the action junkie from the actual rescue of Elsa and the protection of tribal villagers who had shown them hospitality. But ultimately the story never allows you to forget about each of the characters, giving each some very strong identifiers that you'll feel for them especially since Cooper and Rybojad shows no mercy if any were to slip up and be complacent, never in their intention to build supermen or a super team, even if early skirmishes may seem to suggest something like that. It is this avoidance of caricatures that makes you feel for the safety of everyone each time a shot rings out, and as weapons and ammunition become light, fuses a real sense of danger and fear. The villains however are plainly one-dimensional, even for the chief terrorist Zaief (Raz Degan), who has no lack of scenes to show why he's pure evil and is one to be gotten rid of.

Still, Special Forces ranks up there with the many films from around the world about specially trained men and women in uniform being called upon to put their lives at the forefront in the protection and well being of others, and you can either view this as a purely action flick, or a tribute to the spirit of the such groups, with a stark comment as explained by a character, that it's better to go in a blaze of glory, than to live a life of anonymity.

While a tad overlong and light on character development, SPECIAL FORCES nevertheless delivers a fairly solid entry in the modern warfare genre. The plot is rather simple: a French special forces unit (the movie is French/French-produced) is sent in to rescue a journalist from Afghanistan who has been captured by a Taliban warlord. Right off the bat, you are introduced to the principal characters, but not much is given in the way of character development or making the audience care, aside from some small character moments interspersed throughout the latter half of the film. The performances are adequate, with the best being given by Diane Kruger (as the journalist) and Djimon Hounsou (one of the special forces guys). The actor who portrays the Taliban warlord also does a good job, probably adding some depth to his character by having him be Western-educated and somewhat caught between Western culture and his own culture and beliefs, but not much attention is paid to his character either. It also doesn't help that his demise later in the film is done so haphazardly and unceremoniously. As far as the combat sequences go, they were fine and done in current "en vogue" style of somewhat shaky "cinema verite" realism to give a sense of the chaos of battle. The violence was effective and not gratuitous in any way. However, towards the end the movie drags a little bit as we're shown day after day passing of the core group trying to get away from their pursuers and safely back into Afghanistan (they've been wandering around in the Pakistani desert for most of the movie). Overall, the movie is effective in the combat sequences and showing how the special forces team bond with the people they try to rescue. Over the course of the film, you do grow to care a little bit more about the characters but not because you feel like you really know them, just because you empathize with the sticky situation they're in. The movie aspires to be SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (made by the French, and set during the Afghan war), but it falls short of the mark. Still, it makes for a somewhat entertaining, slightly taxing, viewing experience.

If you like war stories, if you like survival, if you like army movies...

Look no further.

This wonderful movie is about a group of 6 special forces, lost somewhere in the Middle East, without communications or vehicles.

They have to walk through the mountains to reach Afghanistan and their base.

The whole movie is not based on the travel, but it takes a big place.

This is an action and emotional film.

There are some good real action scenes and a lot of feelings during the long and hard travel.

I couldn't be bothered to look if this is based on a true story. Nor will I compare this to heroism as seen in American movies of similar genre fair. But I can tell you that with all it's faults and flaws (and there are quite a few), this still manages to grip you, if you have a good surround sound system and a neat television set. Of course that shouldn't be the argument to rate a movie (Bruckheimer would be happy though), but the action is well choreographed, you always know where you are and the actors are not too bad either.

Having said that, I do understand if you feel like you've been cheated when you watch the movie. But don't start asking yourself, why this, why that, it'll spoil your movie experience. And after all, this is just a movie, so don't start comparing it to the real thing! If you do, it'll fail on a major scale!

I am not going to watch this movie again. Why? Because there was few moments in the movie where it felt real. Although some of the actors like the female reporter did a good job of acting, the surroundings didn't seem to be following. The action part looked like any other with the bad guys falling like flies and the good guys standing exposed to the bullets and nothing hitting them. The bad guys resembled zombies and just walked towards the bullets to die as soon as they could. Whenever any of the good guys were hit, everybody cried and screamed like it was the end of the world and they had a lot of time mourning right in the middle of sustained shootings. But the bad guys didn't care dying and as mentioned fell like flies to the ground. The chase scene also didn't look real. While the heroes had to pass high altitude in extremely cold and snow storm, the bad guys suddenly appeared and surprised them. Unlike the heroes, they had little clothing and no sign of wear and exhaustion. This movie could be a lot better if the action scene were a bit more realistic and the bad guys had more character and looked smarter. Other stuff that I didn't like was the fact that these guys where not found although the military had hundreds of ways of finding them. They didn't search for them and these guys had nothing electronic to send a signal back to base although they had everything else imaginable like infinite number of bullets to shoot during their journey. Sometimes in the movie you could see that they had used ideas from other movies to make it more dramatic. You can of course watch this movie but don't be afraid to get disappointed.