Viewing options on Netflix are dire as fuck these days, so ended up watching this movie about a small detachment of Irish soldiers the UN sent into the Katanga province of the formerly Belgian Congo.
The operation is, of course, fucked from the start. It's really just a dog-and-pony show. Send them out, act like 150 men with outdated weapons, limited food, and no air cover are a real presence. Meanwhile, the higher-ups have other plans going, which fail, and make the situation worse. Then it turns into a Cover Your Ass situation, and the troops are hung out to dry while the politicians maneuver. That classic tale.
The Commandant of the Irish troops (played by Jamie Dornan) has apparently read quite a lot about war, but never fought one himself. None of his troops have. Dornan portrays him as increasingly frustrated, but determined to do his duty. Of course, there comes a point his definition of his duty and the United Nations' differs.
But the UN had their chance to do this right, when now-deceased President Lumumba requested their help. But he was going to nationalize all the mining, and might have been to friendly with the Soviets, so they balked. Now that General Tshombe's pulled a coup, they decide it's time to get involved. Locking the barn after the horse killed a bunch of people.
Except the mining companies are quite happy with Tshombe being in charge, and hire him 1,000 mercenaries, including some French Legionnaires as officers. Little difficult to take the UN seriously when it's own members are undercutting it and working against it. It's the League of Nations with better press agents.
Although I'm not sure the Legionnaire guy should be ridiculing Ireland for not having fought a war. Is having gotten your asses handed to you in every war you fought over the previous 150 years really any better than having not waged an official war at all (I say official, because I think the Irish would contend they fought a war of sorts against the English)?
The film does just the bare minimum fleshing out some of the soldiers. The sergeant is gruff but steady. This one guy is worried because he enjoyed killing people. The sniper is extremely competent. This one guy asks what the other soldiers' moms look like so he can beat off to it. Just a bit more depth than a standard paper plate.
The movie does that a fair amount though. It sort of hints at a potential subplot, but never does anything with it. They introduce a widowed white lady whose husband made their fortune and died mining uranium early in the film. She and Quinlan talk a couple of times before the shooting starts, including her letting him use her phone to call his wife, which suggests she may play a larger role, but it never goes anywhere. There's a chunky white guy in a suit who must be a mine official (looks a bit like that Canadian politician Doug Ford and is listed in the credits as Man In a White Suit) that shows up a couple of times. He's watching one of the initial assaults by the mercs, and Quinlan orders the sniper to kill him. Other than the mercs withdrawing temporarily, nothing comes of that either.
I understand this is based on a true story, and therefore not everything get tied up in a neat little bow. But if you are going to do it as a story, why include elements that don't really go anywhere? As a reminder it's a lot of white people messing around in an African nation they (or their ancestors) helped screw up in the first place? I think they had that covered between all the UN guys being white, the French guy who hires the mercs, the French legionnaire leading the mercs, etc.
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