The 12th Man (2017) review

The 12th Man (2017)
D: Harald Zwart
W: Petter Skavlan (under the pseudonym Alex Boe). Based on the book Jan Baalsrud and Those Who Saved Him by Tore Haug and Astrid Karlsen.
C: Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Norwegian resistance fighter Jan Baalsrud (Thomas Gullestad) is the only survivor of a failed twelve man operation to sabotage Nazi military facilities. Now, he must trek aross the brutal Norway winter landscape with very limited resources, and an injured foot that's only getting worse. All this while being tracked by the brutal Nazi SS offcer Kurt Stage (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). 

After watching this film, I want to read as much as can about Ballsrud and the citizens of Norway who put their lives at risk by protecting him.

I, sadly, never knew about this story. Even sadder, I don't know that much about Norway's involvement with World War II - outside of them being an ally against the Nazis.

I found out that there was a movie about this made in 1957 by Arne Skouen called Nine Lives, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars that year. This film has now been added to my neverending to-watch list.

At first, I thought this film was going a bit too slow. Like, gruelingly slow. But then again, this is a movie that wanted to emphasize two things: 1. Those that helped Baalsrud. 2. The rough environment he went through.

If you think The Revenant (2015, dir. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) was a tough film, this almost puts it to shame. Hell, the lead actor (Gullestad) actually suffered from "frost damage" on his hands while filming, according to IMDB.

This is a movie that really takes no prisoners in showing how difficult it was for this man. In this movie, our hero suffers from a gunshot wound while trying to flee the Nazis at the beginning and they do not forget about that.

You see him limping and basically unable to walk at some points. He even develops gangrene around his wound and takes off one of his toes to prevent it from spreading. I'm not joking! It was one of two moments where I had to look away. The other moment was when the Nazis were torturing one of the Norwegian prisoners. Trust me, it'll make you want to look away.

Moving away from that, let's talk about the second point I brought up. The movie puts a lot of emphasis on telling us about the average civilians who helped this man. These people faced the possibility of being executed if they were caught helping him. But they did it anyway.

While some may have involvement with the resistance, some of these are just average people. Farmers, fishermen, nurses, and doctors. Not only do we need to acknowledge the armed service members who fought against the Nazis, we need to acknowledge and show respect towards to the civilians who put themselves at great risk to help.

Sidenote: according to IMDB, one of the background actors - Ottar Pedersen - was one of those who actually helped Baalsrud in real life. Pedersen was 14 at the time when it happened.

This also takes the time to show that Nazis were not only evil but are also stupid. Hopefully a good chunk of my readers just went "well, no duh!"

First of all, they barely seem to care about tracking down Baalsrud. One of them, is basically like "yeah, whatever he probably drowned or died from the cold". Apparently, they thought stopping this operation put an end to the entire Norway resistance. Nope!

The leader, Stage, seems to only care about finding him because he wants to look like a good little Nazi to his superiors. He doesn't want to be made a fool (too late).

There was a moment where they almost caught Baalsrud in the movie at a farm, but just when Stage gets closer to him, his Nazi button gets knocked off his jacket which distracts him. The guy was literally a few steps away from Baalsrud but cared more about his appearance then he did about doing his job.

So, in case you can't tell, I highly recommend this film. Not only is a great story but props need to be given to the actors - especially Gullestad.

It's available to rent on iTunes now.

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