War Veteran Praises Chris Hemworth’s War Movie For “Cool” Horse Sequences

12 Strong, Chris Hemsworth’s 2018 war movie, gets put under the microscope by a real combat veteran, who praises its horse scenes. Starring Hemsworth as Captain Mitch Nelson, 12 Strong is directed by Nicolai Fuglsig, with a supporting cast that includes Michael Peña, Michael Shannon, Navid Negahban, and Trevante Rhodes. The film, which received mixed reviews from critics, follows the first Special Forces team to be deployed to Afghanistan after 9/11.

Now, in a recent video for Insider, retired U.S. Marine Eric Terashima breaks down scenes from 12 Strong to assess how accurate they are to his real-life experiences.

While the war film actually gets a lot right, including its depiction of the power that horses can have on the battlefield, there are several notable mistakes. Check out select comments from Terashima below:

“Being on horses would be beneficial for fighting in Afghanistan because of the mountainous terrain. You have to go through a lot of elevation changes, hiking up, hiking down, and so horses are going to help you gain more distance more quickly as opposed to wearing yourself out on foot.

“People standing up in the middle of a firefight, you actually don’t do that. You want to get down on the ground because you don’t want to get hit. I would give this a six [out of 10] for realism. This particular clip, on the horses is cool and dramatic. Yeah, and they’re charging downhill, but some of the individual tactics kind of made me laugh a little bit.”

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How Does 12 Strong Compare To Chris Hemsworth’s Other Action Movies?

So far, 12 Strong is Hemsworth’s only proper war movie based on a real conflict. The actor previously appeared in the Red Dawn remake in 2012, which follows a group of teenagers who fight back when North Korean soldiers invade the U.S. That film, which presents a PG-13 portrayal of war, was received quite poorly overall, sporting only a 15% score on Rotten Tomatoes compared to 12 Strong‘s 50%.

Of course, the starring role that Hemsworth remains best known for is his portrayal of Thor in the MCU. While earlier installments were darker and somewhat serious superhero action flicks, later movies adopted a much more comedic style, which the actor proved himself a great fit for. Outside of his superhero outings, Hemsworth would also appear in 2015’s Blackhat, which, like Red Dawn, was not well-received, though it did feature the actor in a different type of action role as a hacker.

Thor appearances aside, it’s fair to say that Hemsworth’s best action hero roles have actually come in the last few years. The actor took on the starring role of Tyler Rake in Netflix’s Extraction in 2020, which sees him engage in some John Wick-esque action sequences. He would follow that with Extraction 2 earlier this year, which was not only better than the first one but might just be Hemsworth’s best action role yet. Though 12 Strong perhaps wasn’t the actor’s best-received action-heavy movie, it certainly helped to solidify Hemsworth’s action hero potential.