The 15:17 to Paris [2018]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C-)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


The 15:17 to Paris [2018] (directed by Clint Eastwood, screenplay by Dorothy Blyskal
.based on the book [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Spenser Stone and Jeffrey E. Stern [Atlantic] [GR] [Amzn] [IMDb]) despite lackluster reviews (above) is thematically a quintessential Clint Eastwood directed movie (of this time):

For this is the story of three utterly average guys, Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Spenser Stone in their early 20s, okay two of them were in the U.S. military, who knew each other since middle school (the three play themselves as adults, and Paul-Mikél Williams, Bryce Gheisar and William Jennings play them as tweens).  Near the end of a "reunion trip" of sorts -- Stone, a male nurse serving in the U.S. Air Force was stationed in Portugal, Skarlatos took some R&R near the end of his Oregon Army National Guard tour in Afghanistan and together they convinced Sadler, still in college, to "just get himself a credit card" and fly out to meet them in Italy -- while on the 15:17 train from Amsterdam to Paris on August 21, 2015, they found themselves suddenly present to nascent terrorist attack.

A young Moroccan man, Ayoub El Khazzani (played in the film by Ray Corasani), had entered one of the train's bathrooms with his suitcase, pulled-out the weapons / cartridges that he prepared, stepped-out of the bathroom and started shooting.  The first two passengers that he passed, tried to tackle him and one of them was shot / seriously wounded.  But then the three heroes in the film were present a little further down the first compartment that he had entered (and were actually sitting in the wrong part of the train -- they had "cheated," sneaking-up into 1st class to use the train's wifi ;-). THEY charged, tackled and disarmed him.  And Stone though himself somewhat wounded, since he was a nurse, was actually able to save the life of the passenger who first tried to tackle the assailant and had been shot by him.

It all made for A REMARKABLE STORY all the more so because the three really were utterly "regular people" who simply "stepped-up" BIG-TIME in a moment that they needed to.

Yes, a fair number of reviewers complained that the three's lives were perhaps _too average_, BUT THAT WAS CLEARLY Clint Eastwood's point.  These were three regular guys who did EXACTLY THE RIGHT THING in the moment when they were called to do so.

And then honestly, to me, IT DIDN'T HURT THAT THE THREE WERE CHRISTIAN (perhaps even Catholic -- as one of them, again A TOTALLY "REGULAR GUY," liked praying the Prayer of Saint Francis -- "Lord make me an Instrument of your Peace...")

I loved the movie, applaud Clint Eastwood's willingness to do it, and even in the way that he did it, with the three heroes simply playing themselves, and find the film's message VERY VERY NICE -- We all need to be prepared (and brave enough) to do the right thing at the right time when circumstances call us to "step up."

Excellent film / story!

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12 Strong [2018]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  RogerEbert.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (K. Jensen) review
Los Angeles Times (J. Chang) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review


12 Strong [2018] (directed by Nicolai Fuglsig, screenplay by Ted Tally and Peter Craig based on the book The Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Doug Stanton [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) tells the in good part truly remarkable story of a unit of U.S. Special Forces Green Berets, led by Capt. Mitch Nelson (played quite admirably by Chris Hemsworth) who were dropped into Afghanistan some six weeks after 9/11, to link up with a General Dostum (played in the film by Navid Negahban), the leader of one of the factions in Afghanistan's then quite tattered Northern Alliance.

Riding on horseback with said Afghan warriors, while repeatedly calling-in absolutely devastating B-52 airstrikes from the sky, they helped the previously tattered Northern Alliance army capture just IN THREE WEEKS a key Taliban supply choke-point that led to the Taliban regime's collapse in Afghanistan ONLY A FEW MONTHS LATER.

IT IS A REMARKABLE STORY _definitely_ deserving both a best-selling book / film.

But there are some "nagging issues" that _in fairness_ deserve to be mentioned here as well:

(1) We AMERICANS actually _don't_ have a monopoly on these kind of films.  In recent years, RUSSIA, POLAND and even INDIA (and these are just the countries / films that I know of) have made SIMILAR MOVIES involving true stories of individuals and/or units in legitimately "against all odds" situations who "came through for their countrymen-women" or "their country's honor."  These films include:

The Russian film Kandahar (2010)[MC.ru]*, about the resourcefulness of the members of a Russian civilian flight crew after finding themselves taken hostage by the Taliban in Kandahar in 1995,

the Polish film Karbala [2015], about a Polish unit (as part of the "Coalition of the Willing") in Iraq that held off Sadr's Shiite Militia in that holy city during an uprising there in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, and

the Indian film Airlift (2016) [FiBt] [IMDb] about an initially cynical Indian expat businessman who found himself along with his family trapped in Iraq-occupied Kuwait and who organized the evacuation of some 170,000 of his countrymen-and-women from the country in the weeks just before the commensement of the Persian Gulf War; and

(2) While this film is about a unit of twelve U.S. Green Berets who were dropped into a hostile country where in all honestly, at least initially, they could not trust ANYBODY, what this seemingly "little band" of American soldiers did have is A SKY SEEMINGLY FULL OF B-52 BOMBERS that could be called-in at any time to _absolutely obliterate_ ANYTHING in front of them.

Well that's what we pay for with our Defense dollars.  And in the nearly two decades since 9/11 we've developed a fleet of drones that make even the small squads of human Green Berets largely obsolete.

And I do think that this is (largely) GREAT because it allows our troops to be deployed far more safely than otherwise.

Still to portray this story as an "against all odds" or even "fair fight" is NOT EXACTLY TRUE.  Indeed, there is a dimension to this movie that resembles the still early 1960s era British film Zulu (1964) [wikip] [IMDb] which was apparently made to commemorate the 85th Anniversary of "the stand" during the 1870s-80s "Zulu Wars" of 150 red coated British soldiers who ARMED WITH GATLING GUNS ... "fended off" (cut-down / massacred) hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of (to the British, utterly incomprehensible) spear-and-shield charging Zulu warriors (who were arguably just trying to KEEP THEIR LANDS THEIRS, FREE OF BRITISH IMPERIAL ENCROACHMENT / OCCUPATION).

Anyway, the current film is a compelling story of a squad of 12 American soldiers who (backed by THE WHOLE OF OUR NATION which has invested (probably rightly) so heavily in our Air Force that we literally OWN THE SKY) led a previously tattered rebel Afghan army to victory in a key battle over the Taliban.

IT IS A GREAT STORY, but as much as we'd like it to be, it's not exactly "David and Goliath."  Still I'm certain that the twelve soldiers involved (as well as families) certainly WOULD NOT CARE.  Those B-52s kept those twelve soldiers, OUR twelve soldiers, on task and ... alive.

Good / great job!


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