Chris Hemsworth has defined his career with big blockbusters and action films. Whereas many stars rise to fame through acclaimed performances in smaller independent films, Hemsworth’s first feature film was a franchise movie, playing supporting character George Kirk in the 2009 film Star Trek. Two years later, he debuted as the тιтular Norse God superhero in Thor, which continued his involvement in the MCU and became a defining role in his career.

The actor has also been in numerous action films outside the MCU. Hemsworth leads the Extraction movies, which currently has a third film in production. He has also been in one-off movies, such as the high-tension sports drama Rush in 2013 and the cyber-thriller Blackhat in 2015. Hemsworth’s recent work includes playing Dementus in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and the voice of Optimus Prime in Transformers One. Now, an expert reveals his opinion on another Hemsworth action movie.

A Special Ops Expert Speaks On 12 Strong

The Movie Has Some Flaws

12 Strong‘s wartime accuracy was recently evaluated by an expert. The 2018 war drama centers around a group of Special Forces operatives sent into Afghanistan post-9/11 in an attempt to dismantle the Taliban. In addition to Hemsworth, the film features Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, and Trevante Rhodes. 12 Strong received mixed reviews, getting a 50% Tomatometer. ScreenRant‘s Chris Agar gave the movie 5 out of 10 stars, writing that where the film “struggles most is with pacing, as the film arguably overstays its welcome with a runtime of 130 minutes.“

In a reaction video with Insider, former U.S. Army Special Forces and Delta Force operator Bob Keller ᴀssessed the accuracy of 12 Strong. He took issue with several details including the fact that Hemsworth’s character sends out a seven-digit location coordinate, which does not exist. He also questioned their fighting methods, including when the characters were shown to be on horseback. Ultimately, the expert still gave the film 7 out of 10 stars for accuracy. Check out the full quote from Keller below:

He doesn’t know what he said besides ‘drop bombs.’ It’s pretty stupid. That was a special forces team linked up or had been with the Afghanis, based off one of the first teams that was actually in Afghanistan at the start of the wars.

I’m calling in the aircraft, it would have been way more lenient back then at the beginning of the wars. I mean, we hadn’t been to war in a long time. So how they did it, you can’t say that wouldn’t happen back then. Because some of the calls were off on that scene. But yes, absolutely, like an SF team will call their own air support in.

Okay. Definitely gotta stop. He sends a seven-digit grid or a seven-digit coordinate. Which those don’t exist. It’s either 4, 6, 8, or 10. So all he gives is 7 numbers. Like where, that could be anywhere in the world. So that’s totally off.

Shooting from the hip on horses. Good luck making sH๏τs doing that. Every movie, Special Ops going fully auto. No one goes fully auto. Especially like at the unit. It’s just not a thing. So they did have horseback 100%. Like they were on horseback for a lot of their, I wouldn’t say missions, but like being over there, because that’s how they got around. Being trained on horseback, that’s not going to be a typical thing that you do every single day. Like why go down there and fight on horses, face to face with the guys, when they had the upper ground to begin with. So why go down there?

The Special Forces in the special operations community are supposed to be a force multiplier. I mean their true job is to go overseas and train your host nation so they can do ops on their own. I only did one deployment with special forces, and it was awesome because we did the true SF mission. Like we were actually a force multiplier. For one, they’re going to Sєx it up a little bit from what the book was, or what the actual story was. I mean, it’s a movie. You’ve got to make it entertaining. I’d give it a solid 7.

What This Means For 12 Strong

Keller Is A Tough Critic

It is not easy to get a good rating from Keller, but a 7 out of 10-star rating can be considered a win. Taking issues with several elements of its accuracy, the expert scored the 2013 film White House Down a 4 out of 10 for accuracy. He even gave Francis Ford Coppola’s revered Apocalypse Now a 5 out of 10. Given 12 Strong‘s mixed reviews, however, it is unsurprising that the based-on-a-true story drama would mess up some of the facts, as it lacked quality in several dimensions.

Source: Insider