12 Strong

Unfortunately the movie's central philosophical conflict, between the captain and an Afghan warlord, features dialogue like "Your mission will fail because you fear death."

This is an intense, serious war film.

The action is frequent and gripping, the heroism present but understated, and the sense of tactical complexity has survived the script-writing process, so there is more geo-political subtlety than one expects from a post-9/11 American war movie.

As pointless and as unnecessarily long as the conflict that inspired it.

Like so many muscles in Hollywood, it all feels rather fake: steroidal and pumped up rather than legitimately hard-won.

Yes, it's intense jingoistic nonsense and full of hilarious caricatures - watch out for US enemy No 1, the evil Arab Mullah Razzan, played by Numan Acar in deadpan homage to Aladdin's cartoon nemesis Jafar.

Has a memorable story to tell but does it in an unmemorable way.

For every war cliché there is another scene that offers insight into the difficult and confounding task the men have ahead of them.

It's more of a series of set pieces tenuously strung together . . . the political blinders it has on regarding its events' consequences speak to the movie's lack of intention.

The production behind this had the best intention to honor these men and what they did, but I couldn't shake the notion that the film treated the action like a kid playing in a sandbox.