Dinesh Kamath's article on Hollywood movie 'Special Forces' that was published in Newsband

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The film Special Forces is directed by Stephane Rybojad and produced by Thierry Marro, Benoit Ponsaille. Screenwriter is Stephane Rybojad. The film has Diane Kruger, Djimon Hounsou, Benoit Magimel, Denis Menochet, Raphael Personnaz, Alain Figlarz, Marius, Mehdi Nebbou, Raz Degan and Tcheky Karyo playing important roles.

The film has a terrific cast and a vivid sense of violent peril and political instability. The film gets increasingly worthy as it goes along, but is sharp enough to engage us.

Barely recovered from a full-on secret mission to Kosovo, the French Special Forces team (including Hounsou, Menochet, Figlarz and Marius) heads to the mountains of Pakistan, where journalist Elsa (Kruger) and her local assistant (Nebbou) have been kidnapped by wild-eyed fanatic Zaief (Degan). The team is joined on the ground by Tic-Tac (Magimel), and while the rescue goes to plan, Zaief's well-armed militia is relentless. And getting out is trickier than these six tough guys expected.

Quick editing and a pulsing score maintain the feeling that everything's hugely important. As their epic trek continues, gunfire gets both more frequent and more gruesome. But there are also revealing moments, including the fact that the villain is an English-speaking Westerner.

The team watches helplessly as people are killed so they can stay on-mission. And killing people actually makes them pause: this job isn't easy on the conscience, but they're willing to do the grisly work if they have to.

With the adept cast and skilful filmmaking, this is an unnerving, scrappy action movie infused with humour and drama, even though there are dangers, deaths and injuries depicted. The film also has a ship-based admiral (Karyo) and French government officials, touching on political issues both in Asia and Europe. The film depicts the Pakistani people caught in the crossfire between Western military and ruthless Taliban warlords who seem only interested in settling personal grudges.

Thus the film is a story of Elsa (Diane Kruger), who is abducted by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and then a seasoned team of commandos is tasked with bringing her home. Led by Kovax (Djimon Hounsou), the team of six must go up against impossible odds and a never-ending sea of insurgents led by the ruthless Zaief (Raz Degan) to save Elsa from certain death.

Special Forces opens with images of a military operation. The team at last manages to liberate Elsa. One thing that Special Forces does have going for is its realism. It’s also a beautifully shot film and shows Afghanistan as more than just a country of sand and mud huts.

A war movie buff should not miss the film Special Forces, while for the average cinemagoer, however, it does offer just about enough entertainment and involvement to make it worth your while.