12 Strong (also known as 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers) is an upcoming American war drama film directed by Nicolai Fuglsig and written by Ted Tally and Peter Craig. The film is based on Doug Stanton’s non-fiction book Horse Soldiers, which tells the story of CIA paramilitary officers and U.S. Special Forces sent to Afghanistan immediately after the September 11 attacks. Task Force Dagger, including CIA paramilitary officers and a US Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 595 12 member team, are sent to Afghanistan. The heroes of “Horse Soldiers” are members of the Army’s Fifth Special Forces Group based in Fort Campbell, Ky., an elite corps trained to be both guerrilla fighters and wartime diplomats. They join forces with General Abdul Rashid Dostum of the Northern Alliance to help conduct unconventional warfare against Taliban forces.
There, in the rugged mountains, they must convince Northern Alliance General Dostum (Navid Negahban) to join forces with them to fight their common adversary: the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies. There was only one problem. Nobody told the Special Forces guys about the horses. Northern Alliance soldiers traveled and fought on horseback, which was why they hadn’t had much success against the Taliban, who fought with heavy artillery, including anti-aircraft guns that when pointed groundward proved exceptionally effective at cutting men and horses in half. In addition to overcoming mutual distrust and a vast cultural divide, the Americans—accustomed to state-of-the-art warfare—must adopt the rudimentary tactics of the Afghani horse soldiers. But despite their uneasy bond, the new allies face overwhelming odds: outnumbered and outgunned by a ruthless enemy that does not take prisoners.
Directed by Nicolai Fuglsig and based on the acclaimed “Horse Soldiers” book by best-selling author Doug Stanton, 12 STRONG also stars Michael Peña, Navid Negahban, Trevante Rhodes, Geoff Stults, Thad Luckinbill, Austin Stowell, Ben O’Toole, Austin Hebert, Kenneth Miller, Kenny Sheard, Jack Kesy, Laith Nakli, Fahim Fazli, Yousuf Azami, Said Taghmaoui, Elsa Pataky, William Fichtner, and Rob Riggle.
Principal photography began in January 2017 in New Mexico. The film is set to be released in the United States on January 12, 2018.
