Special Forces

Stephane Rybojad's 'Special Forces' is a wham-bam-thank-you-mam-slam of an action movie. The intense visuals and situations that the characters are put into are horrifying. The set locations are dangerous. It seems like the actor's gave it their all for this film. Unfortunately, after the first leg of this action-thriller, things get all Michael Bay on us with quick zooms and pans, and some wretched dialogue that is only reserved for B movies. That doesn't stop the movie from being entertaining, but it definitely knocks it down from true terror to silly action. But I believe this will find a decent audience on home video.

'Special Forces' packs a stellar cast, but that doesn't always make for a stellar film. It seems like Rybojad didn't know what to do with big named actors. We center on Elsa (Diane Kruger), who is a French war journalist who is kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Elsa is brutally tortured by her captors, and her torture is recorded and sent to Paris.

The French President then assigns an elite Special Forces team to rescue the journalist by any means necessary. A little too quickly, the special forces unit locate Elsa and rescue her. However, the Taliban leader leads a group of men to track down the Special Forces unit and Elsa and kill them. Unfortunately, because of this chase, the elite unit is forced into the desolate mountains of Pakistan, where they lose all contact for their rescue back home. Stuck behind enemy lines, the special forces team must continue to search for help and rescue or make a harsh decision to stand their ground and fight the Taliban.

For me, the feature length documentary on the making of this film in the extras was more intense and interesting than the film. However, even though the movie itself is entertaining, I can't get past how quickly it turns into a commercialized and cliched piece of cinema.

The cast which consists of Diane Kruger, Djimon Hounsou, Benoit Magimel, Denis Menochet, and Raphael Personnaz do a very good job of keeping things flowing and suspenseful, however their dialogue grows to schlocky lines, but that's not their fault. It just feels like the movie took a different direction. And with the quick cuts and laughable zooms, this action flick falls into the silly category more so than the thriller drama it could have been.

I wish there was something more to this, but the fact is, this is just a pop-corn action flick that is flashy with tons of dead bodies and guns a blazing. That being said, it's fairly entertaining and worth a look if you're curious, even if you find yourself laughing and shaking your head.