Based on a True Story Comes THE OUTPOST

Jeri Jacquin

Coming to limited release in theatres and On Demand from Screen Media is the story by author Jake Tapper and director Rod Lurie and the brave men guarding THE OUTPOST.

Staff Sgt. Clint Romesha (Scott Eastwood) and his men Specialist Ty Carter (Caleb Landry Jones), Staff Sgt. Justin Gallegos (Jacob Scipio), Sgt. Josh Kirk (Jack Kesy) helicopter ride into a deep valley in Afghanistan. Surrounded by mountains, they are attacked daily by the Taliban. First Lt. Benjamin Keating (Orlando Bloom) gives the men a tour of the camp letting them know that they must always be at the ready.

It does not take long before the new crew takes a few hits and sees what they are up against. When they get the call to take a very large vehicle to another camp, Keating takes Romesha on roads that aren’t meant to be traversed. When an accident happens, Sylvanius Broward (Kwame Patterson) is sent in telling the men that the camp is going to be shut down. What should be good news really is not.

Their own Afghan interpreter tells the men that the Taliban are coming and although they listen, they go about their mission. Each attack gets a little bolder until the capture a young man who comes into the camp taking pictures of everything he sees. When caught, Romesha along with Broward go to the town elders to explain why the promise made by Lt. Keating of funds is being held up.

Romesha is frustrated because he does not see that Broward is listening to anything the people who live at the outpost are telling him. That is until the camp is hit again. One more time the men must gather together to protect the outpost even though there are more and more Taliban in the mountains above.

When one massive explosion follows another, every takes their places to battle the men coming towards them with more weapons than the outpost has seen. Now, Romesha and his men will do what they must to protect one another and stay alive until the call for help can bring what they need to stop the invasion.

Now they wait.

Eastwood comes on the scene strong with the attitude of a military man with concerns for his men, especially when he sees the camp by the light of day. He turns in a solid performance that isn’t over the top but instead storytelling with the entire cast. Jones as Carter is a young man who is dealing with the stress and anxiety about everything happening around them. When the men need him the most, he puts himself on the line time and time again. Carter gives us the human side of those feelings.

Bloom as Keating knows they are in a raw deal with where the camp is located but tries to make the best of it for everyone. Never sending a man to do something he wouldn’t do himself, he is respected by the men. Scipio as Gallegos and Kesy as Kirk aren’t thrilled with their situation and even less thrilled with those who claim to be in charge but they follow their leader. Both men are a definite benefit to the film. Shout out to Gibson for his second time in a film dealing with war and soldiers as he was in the 2016 film HACKSAW RIDGE directed by his father Mel Gibson.

Other cast include Petar Petrov as Malak, Ahmad Sakhi as Commander Zahid, George Arvidson as Captain Cordova, Brandon Wengrzynek as Sgt. Breed, Jeremy Jones as PFC Jordan Wong, Scott Coffey as Michael Scusa, Jack DeVos as Sgt. Hardt, Ernest Cavazos as Sgt. Avalos, Jonathan Yunger as SFC Jonathan Hill, Alexandar Aleksiev as Sgt. Janis Lakis, Alfie Stewart as Sgt. Yunger, Marin Rangelov as Nasir, Cory Hardrict as Sgt. Vernon Martin, Taylor Smith as First Lt. Andrew Bundermann, Celina Sinden as Cpt. Katie Kopp, Will Attenborough as Ed Faulkner and Milo Gibson as Capt. Yllescas. 

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THE OUTPOST is bases on The New York Times best seller The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor. Written by CNN journalist Jake Tapper, he tells the story of soldiers living in the remote mountains of Afghanistan and Combat Outpost Keating. It is a story about the battle to defend against a coordinated Taliban attack that later came to be known as The Battle of Kamdesh.

Bravo Troop 3-62 would become the most decorated unit of the 2009 Afghan War. Staff Sgt. Cliff Romesha and Specialist Ty Carter were awarded the Medal of Honor. Rod Lurie, the director, is a graduate of West Point and former soldier. Adding to the realism of the film, he added veterans to play various military roles including Henry Hughes and Daniel Rodriguez.

“The gates of Heaven and the gates of hell are claimed to be in the same spot. During the firefight, COP Keating was like the gates of hell: violent, bloody and full of sorrow. However, watching men sacrificing themselves to protect each other, I could see the true form of brotherhood and love, making the firefight at COP Keating like the gates of heaven as well.” Ty M. Carter, Medal of Honor Recipient.

The cast brings the story to us all in a way that allows us to care about them because they each have a story. Adding to that the fact that most of us have family members who are active military, the scenes where the soldiers are calling home are moving and intense at the same time. There is also clearly camaraderie between the cast that transitions into the people they are portraying.

In the end – the mission was survival!