Special Forces (2011)

Forces Speciales tells the story of the French Special Forces and their mission, in this instance, to save journalists who have been kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan and taken to the tribal areas of Pakistan. The covert operation develops complications and the sole lure of the movie is to discover whether the mission will succeed or fail; will they live or die.

As one reviewer notes, the movie is nearly a commercial for the French Special Forces, and the plot of the movie, what there is of it, involves a kill-crazed Al Qaeda leader and his nameless and near-faceless band of zombie-like henchmen who relentlessly pursue their victims. Whoever gets in the way of this insane band of thugs, Afghan, Pakistan, foreign soldier or whatever, they seem to crave killing them quickly. And, the supply of these killers seems limitless, offering the viewer ample opportunities to watch them machine-gunned down in large numbers by the heroes, including a few scenes that include an accompanying heavy-metal music soundtrack.

Yes we see the heroism, self-sacrifice and compassion of the gallant French warriors, along with the typical scenes of male-bonding. But much of this movie is standard fair for the genre, and a very one-dimensional look at the problems of this troubled area of the world. If you think that suits your taste, go for it! One last comment, when will we stop seeing overweight, gray-haired men portraying elite commandos? This is a young man's occupation. I'm surprised we didn't see Jean Reno as the commando leader, but that would have been even more difficult to believe.

Fmovies: While 'Forces Spéciales' has some shortcomings, I have to say I enjoyed watching it. Sure the team doesn't always look up to the task, a few actors may not be too convincing either (although most are) and one may wonder about the tactics used in the film.

What I liked about this movie was that the crew and cast went to Tajikistan to shoot the Afghanistan and Pakistan scenes which makes the whole story more realistic – American productions would usually settle for Morocco or Jordania but the scenery is not quite the same. Another quality in 'Forces Spéciales' is the storyline which is kept simple, there is not subplot or complicated background: A French reporter is kidnapped by the Talibans, a team of team of soldiers is sent to rescue her. Also, languages have not been unified into English, something Hollywood still has problems with regularly.

'Forces Spéciales' might not be the best action movie ever (I am not sure this is what it's supposed to be anyways) but it has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison to 'Act of Valor' which was a big disappointment for me.

In Afghanistan, the French journalist Elsa (Diane Kruger) and her colleague Amen (Mehdi Nebbou) are covering the story of Maina (Morjana Alaoui), a woman that was sold to a man when she was a child. The Taliban leader Ahmed Zaief (Raz Degan) abducts Elsa and Amen and tries to force her to read a message to the Western governments.

The Frech president sends six Special Force men to rescue Elsa that his hidden in a fortress in Pakistan. The team composed by Commander Kovax (Djimon Hounsou), Tic-Tac (Benoît Magimel), Lucas (Denis Ménochet), the sniper Elias (Raphaël Personnaz), Victor (Alain Figlarz) and Marius (Alain Alivon) release Elsa and Amen from their imprisonment but they lose their radios. Now the group needs to cross the inhospitable land to save their lives with the Taliban chasing them.

"Forces Spéciales" is one of the best and most underrated action movies I have recently seen. The talented Diane Kruger is one of the most (if not the most) beautiful contemporary actresses and has an awesome performance in the role of a French journalist kidnapped by the Taliban.

The action scenes are excellent, with great choreography and it is funny to read reviews telling that they are unrealistic as if it was a documentary and not an action film. The film is engaging from the beginning to the last scene in the end of the credits and like in most European films, the cast speaks more than one language. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Forças Especiais" ("Special Forces")

Special Forces fmovies. 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.

At first sight, it would seem that Special Forces is one of many cheap straight-to-DVD action films. The art of its Blu-Ray box couldn't have been more generic; its title doesn't say too much; and its cast has some famous actors, but none of them is a big star. However, the reality is very different...Special Forces is a polished French production made with enough money to compete with Hollywood films from this type, something which gave it the opportunity of being filmed in spectacular natural settings, employing genuine military hardware, and orchestrate action scenes with high technical and visual values. However, the screenplay from Special Forces has various clichés, and it looks like the one of any typical B-movie we could find on some TV channel at night.

The screenplay from Special Forces is developed through a familiar road, even though with enough deviations in order to keep a moderate suspense and the obligatory melodrama which works in order to humanize the characters with picturesque glimpses to the their nature and occasional details about their personal lives. Sometimes, this "humanization" works, and sometimes, it doesn't, depending on how well it's integrated to the story. For example, we know that one of the soldiers wants to go back home in order to witness his son's birth, and even though that's not a very original reason,it's enough for justifying his impatient attitude and desperate actions; but other characters lack of definition, and as a consequence, they fall into the involuntary anonymity; so, when one of them dies in combat and the film portrays the pain from his colleagues, it's difficult for us to share those emotions, and instead of sadness, we feel a slight boredom.

However, Special Forces kept me generally entertained despite not being a highly memorable film. One of the aspects I most liked from this movie is the way it examines the reasons why the French government would invest so many resources and risk themselves to provoke an international incident in order to rescue a journalist they didn't care about when she was doing her job; and I also liked to see a similar questioning between the soldiers themselves, specially when things start going wrong and it seems that they won't survive the mission...Is it worthy to sacrifice a dozen of loyal soldiers in order to save only one life? Where does the humanitarian mission end and where does the political manipulation begin?

The actors from Special Forces make an adequate work, highlighting Diane Kruger and Djimon Hounsou. The cinematography is excellent, and the action scenes are well filmed. On the negative side, some action sequences look incompatible with the characters' profession. I mean, I'm not an expert in military strategy, but there are some moments which draw the attention for the foolishness these "elite soldiers", who are supposedly trained for any situation, commit. Nevertheless, I had a good time while watching Special Forces, and even though it's not something brilliant, I can give it a moderate recommendation.

Starts as the expected showy advertising for French armed forces (I love the genre but I understand it may not be everybody's cup of tea), then masquerades as some attempt at a lame military action storyline... And then before you know it you find yourself emotionally pulled into a story that provides its share of insights into the contemporary meaning of being a professional soldier. Obviously heavy support from the French armed forces to the production enables the attention to detail that provides credible full immersion into the environment through many vignettes. Stunning landscapes make that even better. Sure, a couple of tactical choices and implausible coincidences pivotal to the story look like concessions to the necessities of a Hollywood movie scenario... But I'll gladly forgive that - and the use of music too : the temptations of becoming a documentary or a caricature have been resisted after all, and what's left is an engaging survival story that will catch an audience far wider than the military niche.