Direction: Rod Lurie
Country: USA
Rod Lurie’s factual war film, The Outpost, reconstructs the tormenting moments lived by 53 American soldiers under heavy Taliban fire while stationed at Combat Outpost Keating, located in a remote valley in eastern Afghanistan. The occurrence, known as the Battle of Kamdesh, took place in October 2009. The script by Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson - the duo behind The Fighter (2010) and Patriots Day (2016) - was based on the book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor by CNN journalist Jake Tepper.
With no much time available to get inside the characters, everything develops quickly and forthright, yet the film never engages in pyrotechnic flourishes, preferring instead to dive in a raw realism that goes hand-in-glove with the bursts of tension. The responsive ensemble cast is at its best during the frenetic action scenes, but the film also emphasizes rather than examines the psychological disorders experienced by soldiers in distress.
Being Lurie’s best film to date, The Outpost is an unsparing look at the frustrations of fighting against hundreds of invisible enemies armed to their teeth. Furthermore, it makes us ponder about how the massacre could have been easily avoided.
