Special Forces

For top-notch action from the Middle East, there’s Black Hawk Down. For getting to know people while journeying through the Himalayas towards freedom, there’s The Way Back. Special Forces is a French hybrid of those two films – though it’s not exactly boring, it has unremarkable action scenes and a plot that’s about as deep as a puddle in the Afghani desert. It tries to forcefully milk our emotions by killing characters it tells us nothing about. It’s just shallow kitsch with a nice acting ensemble. (01/02/2012)

And they say that the French can only wave the white flag. There were moments when I was willing to give a full four stars to this purely male spectacle, which sells all the clichés, plot crutches, and predictable situations with such irresistible guilelessness. However, there are just too many moments when you put your hand on your heart and know that it's just a tad higher in intelligence than an episode of "Call of Duty." It is not the poor man’s version of The Way Back, but as a promising debut from a promising director, I have no objections. 3 ½, thumbs up, and if you're encumbered by genre, go for it. (08/02/2012)

This movie was recommended to me by Enšpígl and it looks incredibly tough. I mean I really haven’t seen such a tough and manly movie for a really long time. Truth be told, at the beginning, I didn’t understand the plot or almost anything that was going on in the movie. It seems the editor had a nice little line (of coke) because the movie kept switching from one plotline to another really quickly. But then the story, which turns out to be fairly simple, starts unravelling and I was watching actors who portray such great men that you could wipe the sweat off their brows because they really gave it all they had. Naturally, the movie isn’t a men-only affair and Diane Kruger gets involved, who once again showed that no matter what she looks like, she’s still simply great and amazing. By the way, in this movie she looks like she really did just walk through the steppes for many days and nights. But let’s leave that aside. What’s important is the action, and I must say that in this case the editor did a hell of a job, and all that good-guy-quality and manliness, which you don’t get to see so much in movies these days. (19/03/2013)

Part of French cinema has always admired overseas production and clearly drew inspiration from Hollywood and its commercial trends. Some films simply cannot deny their ambition to catch up with and surpass their models, and Special Forces clearly draws from American patriotic and militarism-saturated films about perfect war professionals who love their country and are always willing to stand up against overwhelming odds to save democracy, innocent orphans, or fragile women. I don't think this fairytale is, in fact, not offensive because its dullness did disturb me a bit and I considered it a perfect waste of time in the end - and I certainly didn't have high expectations. It's a dull shooter saturated with sentiment and, above all, an enormous amount of pathos, and it's poorly shot and edited with distinctly black-and-white characters. It takes itself deadly seriously, while the only chance to sell this abomination would be to lighten it up because it truly cannot be taken seriously. I didn't like the Rambo films even when I was a teen, and over the years, that feeling only intensified. Overall impression: 10%, mainly for the presence of Diane Kruger. (10/02/2018)

Tears of the Sun in the French style - even the unit commander is rough and bald (not Bruce Willis, but rather Djimon Hounsou). The first hour is full of quite well shot and gripping shootouts, the members of the unit have plenty of sarcasm and poke fun at each other, and the Taliban are not outright scary, but they do at least command respect. The second half, with the trudge through the Hindu Kush, during which it is fortunately (for the viewer) revealed that the armed tough guys are not nearly as immortal as they pretend, is sensational too, though in a very different way. Diane Kruger was excellent, even more beautiful than usual without make-up. (28/03/2013)

A film about how it's good to save one person, even if it means many others might die in the process, just to save that one. Does such an action really make sense? Apparently so, although I'm not really sure what the point is. Could it be Diane Kruger's beauty? The film didn't provide an answer, so the only thing to appreciate is the good action scenes, which however only involve a few people; otherwise, it wouldn't have been manageable. (07/12/2016)