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The 12th Man Reviews
Riveting both visually and narratively.
Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 27, 2022
A war film that wears superior influences on its sleeve. On the flipside, it brings us the best reindeer-chase scene ever committed to film.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 4, 2019
A bold end to an original version of a familiar tale.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 4, 2019
Although initially the movie is a bit of a slog, the final leg is superbly staged and finger-chewingly tense, and it left me with almost as few nails as our frostbitten hero.
Each sequence is informative and involving, with moments of strong suspense as well as some low-key emotional resonance.
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 3, 2019
Baalsrud never claimed to be a hero and the emphasis of this gripping reconstruction rightly falls on the resourcefulness, courage and self-sacrifice of those who epitomised the spirit of resistance.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 3, 2019
A handsomely produced but laborious, drawn-out and dramatically inert movie...
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 3, 2019
The 12th Man is shamelessly old-fashioned, but sincere in capturing quiet stoicism.
..an epic war drama about one man's struggle against all the odds to survive.
Full Review | Dec 31, 2018
Although competent in terms of storytelling, the most impressive aspect of the film was its visual impact, with some severe scenes causing discomfort. But it's also a jolt when we think that these occurrences actually happened.
Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 16, 2018
Thrilling story based on an actual occurrence during World War 2 in which a high-ranking Nazis persistently chases a Norwegian saboteur across the snowbound terrain of Northern Norway.
Full Review | Original Score: B+ | May 25, 2018
The best freedom-fighting reindeer in all of cinema can be found right here in "The 12th Man."
Full Review | May 8, 2018
... lacks conviction and doesn't convey sufficient urgency considering the subject matter and the stakes involved. It's more tedious than suspenseful.
Full Review | May 4, 2018
Despite a slow start and some overly graphic scenes, 'The 12th Man' is a suspenseful thriller about a World War II Norwegian resistance fighter and the people who helped him.
When Baalsrud, played with resilience by Thomas Gullestad, isn't dodging Germans, his fights against the elements bring to mind films such as The Revenant.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 4, 2018
One of the wildest, most creative fugitive stories told about the Nazi occupation...
At 130 minutes, it isn't a short film, and its most intriguing elements, much like Baalsrud's rations, are in short supply.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 3, 2018
In a familiar genre, "The 12th Man" preserves the element of surprise by understanding its terrain.
Full Review | May 3, 2018
"The 12th Man" is a polished crowd-pleaser, with a timeless message: Nazis suck.
Easily reps a personal best for the helmer, and is a stirring adventure by any standard.
Film Review: ‘The 12th Man’
A stirring retelling of Resistance hero Jan Baalsrud's epic cross-country flight in Nazi-occupied Norway.
By Dennis Harvey
Dennis Harvey
Film Critic
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Harrowing physical adventure “The 12th Man” retells the story of Jan Baalsrud, the sole survivor of a thwarted Allied sabotage mission against the Nazis in occupied Norway. Wounded, hunted, often near-death, his long but ultimately successful escape to Sweden was already dramatized onscreen in 1957’s “Ni Liv” aka “Nine Lives,” an Oscar nominee considered one of the greatest Norwegian features ever made. (More recently it was also the subject of documentary miniseries “In the Footsteps of Jan Baalsrud.”)
One might not automatically set expectations quite so high for a new version directed by Harald Zwart , who’s scored some major hits both at home (comedy “Long Flat Balls” and its sequel) and internationally (the “Karate Kid” remake) as well as some thoroughly mainstream duds (“Pink Panther 2,” “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones”). But “12th Man” easily reps a personal best for the helmer, and is a stirring adventure by any standard. It opens in New York and Los Angeles this Friday via IFC Midnight — a bit curiously, as this isn’t that distributor’s usual horror or other genre fare.
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An opening title notes that “The most incredible events in this story are the ones that actually took place,” which both provides wiggle room for dramatic license and prepares one to accept a saga of arduous peril at times so extreme it might normally beggar belief. Baalsrud was a much-traveled cartographer who fled his native Norway after fighting during the initial German invasion, eventually landing in Britain to train with a squad of fellow expats. In early 1943 a dozen of them took a boat heavily loaded with explosives back to their homeland, intending to blow up Nazi airfields. Discovered before reaching their destination, they had to destroy their vessel and cargo and were fired upon by the enemy as they swam ashore in freezing waters.
Popular on Variety
Only Baalsrud (played here by Thomas Gullestad) managed to escape capture, despite having been shot in the foot and losing a boot. His flight to safety remains almost beyond the limits of human endurance: He somehow not only successfully eluded an extensive Nazi manhunt, he spent more than two months in an arctic winter landscape traveling on foot, by boat, skis and sled, though blizzards and other harsh conditions — dealing with gangrene and near-starvation en route.
Those among his comrades who weren’t tortured to death were executed by firing squad. Baalsrud’s lone endurance made him a popular hero of Norwegian resistance even as his ordeal was ongoing. Thus he finds rural residents ready to help him when he stumbles into their isolated farmhouses — though such acts could get them killed by the occupiers.
While much of “The 12th Man” is naturally dominated by our protagonist’s solo battle for survival — which included long forced stints hiding under a mountain rock and in a cave — the film’s emotional core is provided by his interactions with civilians who recurrently save his life. These samaritans’ resourcefulness, bravery and self-sacrifice is quietly moving, as shown by two key characters played by Mads Sjogard Pettersen and Marie Blokhus. It’s typical of the judicious script by “Kon-Tiki” scribe Petter Skavlan (billed here for unknown reasons as Alex Boe) that their patriotism is seldom verbalized; it’s taken for granted that these people will do the right thing, no matter the risk.
There are very few false steps in this long but taut account, though Zwart doesn’t quite pull off some moments of delusion and/or nightmare that feel unnecessary. An 11th-hour crisis involving a reindeer-pulled sled feels a bit over-the-top, whether it’s actually based on fact or not. But otherwise “12th Man” wisely hews to an understatement that appreciates the tale’s considerable scope without caving in to the kind of melodramatic tone that might’ve rendered its epic pileup of emergencies implausible or excessive. Likewise, Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ German-speaking turn as Col. Kurt Stage, the Gestapo officer obsessed with tracking Baalsrud down, provides a villain whose rage simmers under a rigid surface rather than bursting into stereotypical tantrums.
Gullestad, who reportedly lost more than 30 pounds within eight weeks to convey his character’s hardships, runs a thespian gamut of physical and psychological extremity with nuanced skill. It’s all the more impressive a turn given that this is his first major acting role; until now he’s been primarily a Norwegian TV personality and member of pop hip-hop group Klovner i Kamp.
“The 12th Man” is also first rate in technical and design aspects, with frequently spectacular widescreen location photography by Geir Hartly Andreassen (also DP on “Kon-Tiki,” as well as several of Zwart’s prior features) and a fine score by Christophe Beck.
Reviewed online, San Francisco, May 1, 2018. Running time: 130 MIN. (Original title: “Den 12. Mann.”)
- Production: (Norway) An IFC Midnight release (U.S.) of a Nordisk Film and Zwart Arbeid presentation. Producers: Aage Aaberge, Veslemoy Ruud Zwart, Espen Horn, Harald Zwart. Executive producers: Henrik Zein, Lone Korslund, Kjetil Jensberg, Petter Skavlan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers.
- Crew: Director: Harald Zwart. Screenplay: Alex Boe, based the book “Jan Baalsrud og de som reddet ham” by Tore Haug and Astrid Karlsen Scott. Camera (color, widescreen, HD): Geir Hartly Andreassen. Editor: Jens Christian Fodstad. Music: Christophe Beck.
- With: Thomas Gullestad, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Mads Sjogard Pettersen, Marie Blokhus, Martin Kiefer, Torgny Aanderaa, Vegar Hoel, Hakon Thorstensen Nielsen, Eirik Risholm Velle, Daniel Frikstad, Alexander Zwart, Eric Dirnes. (Norwegian, German, English dialogue)
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