Sunday, 26 February 2012

Special Forces

Last Tuesday (21/2), I happened to have the chance to watch the premiere movie screening for the movie "Special Forces" in Midvalley. The director of the movie is Stephane Rybojad. I was late into the cinema and hence I missed out the 5-10 minutes of the starting. As a result, I did not understand well what had happened and I got bored. Seriously, I thought the movie is about some special agents like CIA or undercover on a mission, I never thought it will be something that involves the military. I don't like watching those movies because it somehow bores me. I almost felt asleep in the cinema. However, as the movie goes on, it turns out to be interesting and a great one.

The movie screening pass!

It is a story about a German-born French reporter, Elsa Casanova (starred by Diane Kruger) is kidnapped by the chief of the Taliban regime, Bin Laden-ish Jihadi Ahmed Zaef (Raz Degan), while she was investigating a case of human trafficking in Afghanistan. The Taliban regime is well known with the human trafficking cases. After he captured Elsa, he released a video to the world annoucing that he will behead the attractive reporter. Due to this reason, the French government felt outraged and fear of the hugely embarassing spectacle that she will be executed, they call in a Special Forces unit that consists of 6-man elite to rescue her. It was led by the serious leader, Kovax (Djimon Hounsou), Tic-Tac (Benoit Magimel), Lucas (Denis Menochet), Elias (Raphael Personnaz), Victor (Alain Figlarz) and Marius (Alain Alivon).

The elite and the reporter

The team was dropped into the Pakistani tribal area where Elsa is held. They managed to free her from the cell with Amen (Mehdi Nebbou). However, their planned extraction fails under heavy gunfire from the Taliban and their radio was destroyed in the resulting shootout. Therefore, they are forced to travel to a safer haven on foot with the Taliban on their tail, their mission reduced to a predictable game of cat-and-mouse in the majestic Hindu Kush mountains, where is the borderline of Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Escaping

During their escape, they realized that they do not have enough warming clothes which are needed in order to climb up to the mountains. They found a small community (or village) on the way to mountains. The village only contains the elders because the young men were all captured by the Talibans. They went to there to borrow some clothes. Despite the conflict of their identities, the old villagers agreed to lend them what they want such as food and clothes. They even get along with each other very well. They left their guards down and totally forgot the Zaef and Taliban regime who was tightly on their tail. In the end, the team was found by them and attacked by Zaef and his Talibans. Although they managed to escape, Marius was shot and died in the shooting.

Some screen shots from the movie

However after the escape, Amen and few of them decided to go back to the village to save the villagers because they knew that Zaef would make a massacre in the village because of giving them a nice treatment. Amen felt that he has to save the villagers because of the guilt. In the end, all of them went back to the village while Victor stayed with Elsa.

As expected, back in the village, the cruel Zaef killed the old villagers without a blink of eye. He even shot his subordinate in the head. The rest of his army obeyed him only because of his cruelty. Amen died in the fight while Lucas was injured from the gun shots which later he died also. Elias volunteered himself to be the bait so that the rest of them can escape. However, he ended up the same destiny as Amen.

Elias, the youngest in the team

Zaef's team was cleared off to 30% while Kovax's team only left Tic-Tac and Victor. Kovax's team was very depressed because of the lost of their buddies. While they were burrying Lucas, two men from Zaef team approached them with hands up (a sign that they have no harm) and helped them to burry Lucas with rocks. After that, they continued their journey to the mountain.

'Special Forces'
To the mountain

On their journey to the mountain, Victor was shot by a hidden man from Zaef's army. They carried the severe injured Victor to the mountain. The mountain is covered by white snow and it was very cold. Obstacles come from one after one. There was a storm. After the storm is over, Victor was found frozen to death.

Victor's frozen dead body was found

The remaining people in the team, Elsa, Kovax and Tic-Tac continued their journey. They are getting closer and closer to their destination. After they passed by the mountain, they had another intense encounter with Zaef and his remaining army not more than 20 people. While Kovax and Tic-Tac were busy handling Zaef's people, Elsa was caught by Zaef. Zaef tried to use Elsa to threaten Kovax, but he was shot in the head by Kovax without a chance to speak a word. Tic-Tac was shot at the leg.

The three of them continued again. The danger of the lowlands kept comig to them. Kovax was injured in a landslide where the rocks buried his leg. When his leg was taken out from the rocks, it was badly injured where the bones were broken and came out. Kovax and Tic-Tac knew that they couldn't move any more. In addition, there wasn't any sufficient resources for them to continue. In order not to drag Elsa down together with them, both of them decided to let Elsa continue the remaining journey alone which is not far from the destination. They let her to go and asked her to bring along the food and water.

Elsa continues the journey alone

Elsa alone continue the journey in the hot desert. She fainted and was then found by the France army. Later on, she made a request to search for Kovax and Tic-Tac. Fortunately, she succeed and found them in time.

This is really a nice movie. The audiences were all so tensed at the climax. The uncle sat beside me, was so agitated that he sat so straight up. While the uncle sat in front of me, keep mumbling "Aiyo.." Meanwhile, many gasping came from the female audiences. It was really a very touching movie as well, I watched those touching scenes with watery eyes.

The team that symbolises brave

I think I might have leaked out too much for the movie but it is another experience for you to go to cinema and watch it yourself. I would rate this movie 7 out of 10.


Here's the trailer, it was already screen in the European countries' cinema last year. For Malaysia, it is released on 23 February. I'm not sure what is the language they are speaking, but in Malaysia cinemas it is dubbed with English already.



BY: YEONG YEE SIONG

No comments:

Post a Comment