Mosul (2019 action film)

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Mosul
Mosul (2019 drama film).jpg
Film poster
Directed by Matthew Michael Carnahan
Written byMatthew Michael Carnahan
Based on"The Desperate Battle to Destroy ISIS"
by Luke Mogelson
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Mauro Fiore
Edited by Alex Rodriguez
Music by Henry Jackman
Production
companies
Distributed by Netflix
Release date
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited States
Language Iraqi Arabic

Mosul is a 2019 Arabic-language American war action film [2] written and directed by Matthew Michael Carnahan. The film is based on the 2016 Battle of Mosul, which saw Iraqi government forces and coalition allies defeat ISIS, who had controlled the city since June 2014.

Contents

The film premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival [3] [4] and released on Netflix on November 26, 2020. [5]

Plot

During the Battle of Mosul, three Iraqi policemen arrest ISIS drug smugglers. However, they are soon overrun by ISIS and run out of ammo while defending themselves inside a café building. One of the police officers, Kawa, a 21 year old Feyli Kurd recently enlisted as a police officer, loses his uncle during the gunfight. The Nineveh SWAT Team, while going on a mission of their own, find the stranded police officers and save them from the ISIS group, as well as execute the drug smugglers. The Nineveh SWAT Team, a police division made up of men native to Mosul who lost family members to ISIS and led by Commander Major Jasem, offers Kawa to join them since he lost his uncle to ISIS and is thus eligible to become part of their team. He accepts, while his partner, the other police officer named Jameel, offers to take Kawa's uncle's body for burial.

The SWAT team continue their mission. Kawa repeatedly asks about their mission objective but is always ignored. While resting inside an abandoned building, Kawa and Jasem notice Kawa's previous partner, Jameel, returning and signalling to an ISIS car bomber the location of the SWAT team. Tomahawk, one of the SWAT team members, dies during the bomb blast. Commander Jasem gives Tomahawk's axe to Kawa. As they take the body of their fallen SWAT member for burial, Kawa grows repeatedly frustrated as no one answers his questions and no one trusts him while Hooka accuses him of being a traitor's partner.

While crossing into the ISIS-held part of Mosul, the SWAT team and the surrounding civilians come under fire from ISIS gunmen shooting from a rooftop and Hooka is killed. As the SWAT team clear the rooftop and plan their next course of action, an explosive-laden drone targets one of the SWAT men's Humvees. A second explosive-laden drone is shot down by Iranian Special Forces operative Colonel Isfahani, who is commanding the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in Mosul. He offers the SWAT team ammunition in exchange for cigarette cartons. As the SWAT men meet with the PMF and Jasem barters with Isfahani, Jasem realizes that one of the PMF's prisoners is Kawa's partner Jameel. Jameel explains that he was captured by the ISIS group and threatened with the assassination of his grandson in Michigan unless he informs them of the SWAT team's location. Tensions between the SWAT and the PMF rise rapidly when Jasem and Ishfahani argue on what to do with Jameel, but Kawa uses the axe he was given and kills Jameel, de-escalating the situation. Waleed then exchanges Hooka's hookah for an RPG with a single rocket, intending to attack an ISIS camp they've seen earlier from the rooftop.

As they leave, Commander Jasem explains to Kawa that his SWAT team have gone against his police superiors' orders to not undertake this mission; he begins to answer Kawa's repeated questions about the mission. However, Kawa stops him and informs him he does not want to know anymore and that he will just follow Jasem's commands. The SWAT team continue their mission and reach a roadblock, which forces them to fight outside their Humvees. Youness is accidentally killed by friendly fire, while Kawa gets injured by a friendly fire grenade and gets facially disfigured and is covered with a balaclava. As the team proceed on foot and enter a building, Razak is killed in close quarter combat and Sinan sustains a stab wound.

The SWAT team proceed to attack the ISIS camp, losing a team member in the process to enemy fire. As they are securing the ISIS camp, Jasem, who has a habit of cleaning trash from any area he is in despite its destruction, accidentally triggers an ISIS booby trap and is killed. With the death of their commander, the SWAT team suffer great morale loss. However, Kawa succeeds in reminding them of their mission. Waleed leads the remainder of the SWAT group, now down to 6 members, into an apartment complex where he uses a spare key he had hidden in his shoe to open an apartment door. He kills an ISIS member who has taken Waleed's wife Hayat along with her daughter Dunya for forced marriage.

Kawa finally understands the objective of the SWAT mission, learning that the group had been carrying missions to liberate members of their families captured by ISIS. As he learns that Amir's son is close to their location, he asks how far.

Cast

Production

The film was inspired by Luke Mogelson's article "The Desperate Battle to Destroy ISIS." as published in The New Yorker. [6] and was shot in Marrakesh, Morocco.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 84% based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 7.30/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "With a fresh perspective to balance the familiar Middle Eastern war violence, Mosul hits its targets forcefully." [7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [8] After high viewership in Europe and the Middle East, cast members began receiving death threats on social media from individuals claiming to be affiliated with ISIS. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mosul</span> City in Nineveh, Iraq

Mosul is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second-largest city in Iraq, by population and area, after the capital, Baghdad. Mosul lies approximately 400 km (250 mi) north of Baghdad on the Tigris River. The Mosul metro area has grown from the old city on the western side to encompass substantial areas on both the "Left Bank" and the "Right Bank", as locals call the two respective sides of the Tigris. The city encloses the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh – once the largest city in the world – on its east side.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bartella</span> Town in Ninawa, Iraq

Bartella is a town that is located in the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq, about 21 kilometres east of Mosul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service</span> Military unit

The Counter Terrorism Service is an Iraqi security and intelligence agency tasked with counterterrorism. The Service’s operational arm is called the Iraqi Special Operations Forces. They are an elite special operations force composed of three brigades based in several governorates, and who are often collectively referred to as the Golden Division.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Iraq offensive (June 2014)</span> ISIL military offensive in northern Iraq against Iraqi government (2014)

The Northern Iraq offensive began on 4 June 2014, when the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, assisted by various insurgent groups in the region, began a major offensive from its territory in Syria into Iraq against Iraqi and Kurdish forces, following earlier clashes that had begun in December 2013 involving guerillas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Popular Mobilization Forces</span> Iraqi military formation

The Popular Mobilization Forces, also known as the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) is an Iranian-backed paramilitary umbrella group that operates within Iraq. Although formally and legally part of the Iraqi Armed Forces and reporting directly to the Prime Minister, PMF leaders act independently from state control and, in reality, answer to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei. It is composed of about 67 primarily Shia armed factions, almost all of which are Iranian-backed and openly pledge allegiance to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Chief of Staff of the PMF, Abu Fadak al-Mohammadawi, openly declared that the PMF takes orders from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. PMF Chairman Falih al-Fayyadh cooperates with the Iranian IRGC to implement Iranian instructions in Iraq and reinforce Iranian influence over the militias. The PMF were formed in 2014 and fought in nearly every major battle during the War in Iraq (2013–17) against the Islamic State. In December 2016, the Iraqi Council of Representatives passed a law that defined the PMF’s legal status and created the Popular Mobilization Commission, which is a formal governmental agency that includes all PMF groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mosul offensive (2015)</span> 2015 offensive against ISIL

The Mosul offensive (2015) was an offensive launched by Kurdish Peshmerga forces on 21 January 2015, with the objective of severing key ISIL supply routes to Mosul, Iraq, and to recapture neighboring areas around Mosul. The effort was supported by US-led coalition airstrikes. The Iraqi Army was widely expected to launch the planned operation to retake the actual city of Mosul in the Spring of 2015, but the offensive was postponed to October 2016, after Ramadi fell to ISIL in May 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shabak Brigade</span> Shiite Muslim Shabak militia in the Nineveh Plains

The Shabak Brigade, also known as the Shabak Militia or Liwa al-Shabak is an Iraqi armed group that was formed in 2014. The group was initially formed with around 1,500 militiamen in order to regain control of the Nineveh Plains from the Islamic State (ISIS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirqat offensive (2016)</span> 2016 offensive against ISILs positions in Mosul and the surrounding region

The Shirqat offensive, codenamed Operation Conquest or Operation Fatah, was an offensive against the positions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in and around the district of Al-Shirqat District to reach the city of Mosul.

This is a timeline of events during the War in Iraq in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Mosul (2016–2017)</span> Large-scale military campaign to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State

The Battle of Mosul was a major battle initiated by the Iraqi Government forces with allied forces to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIL), which had seized the city years prior in June 2014. It was the largest conventional land battle since the capture of Baghdad in 2003. It was also the world's single largest military operation overall since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was considered the toughest urban battle since World War II.

The Hamam al-Alil massacre was the killing of at least 300 civilians in the town of Hamam al-Alil in Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in late October and early November 2016. The event took place within a larger ongoing assault on the city of Mosul by a wide coalition of anti-ISIL forces, which managed to capture Hamam al-Alil on 7 November.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persecution of gay and bisexual men by the Islamic State</span>

Violence against LGBT people is part of the ideology of ISIL, which mandates capital punishment for homosexuality within its territory, in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

The 2017 Western Nineveh offensive, code-named Operation Muhammad, Prophet of God, was launched by the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) against the Islamic State (IS) in the western Nineveh province of northern Iraq in late April 2017.

During the course of the Battle of Mosul (2016–2017), an international coalition, primarily composed of the Iraqi Army, Kurdish Peshmerga, CJTF–OIR, along with the allied Popular Mobilization Forces, Company A, 2-502 Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, captured Mosul from the Islamic State, which had used Mosul as the capital for the Iraqi half of its "caliphate".

The following is a timeline of the Battle of Mosul (2016–17) between December 2016 to February 2017.

The following is a timeline of the Battle of Mosul (2016–17) between October and December 2016.

Wahida Mohamed al-Jumaily, better known as Um Hanadi, is an Iraqi fighter and commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) who fought against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Al-Shirqat District. She is the only female commander in the PMF and leads her own unit in the district. She lost two husbands to ISIL and is known for her brutality against ISIL fighters. She was feature in the documentary Mosul directed by Dan Gabriel.

This is a timeline of events during the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq (2017–present) in 2021.

This is a timeline of events during the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq (2017–present) in 2020.

This is a timeline of events during the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq (2017–present) in 2018.

References

  1. ↑ "Biennale Cinema 2019 | Mosul". 23 July 2019.
  2. ↑ "Netflix Picks Up AGBO-Produced Action Movie 'Mosul' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter . 9 October 2020. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
  3. ↑ "Mosul". labiennale.org. 23 July 2019. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  4. ↑ Marshall, Lee (September 4, 2019). "'Mosul': Venice Review". Screen Daily. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
  5. ↑ Blistein, Jon (November 9, 2020). "Iraqi Fighters Try to Beat Back ISIS in New Trailer for 'Mosul'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
  6. ↑ Chris Evangelista "Mosul Headed to Netflix" Friday, October 9th, 2020, https://www.slashfilm.com/mosul-netflix/
  7. ↑ "Mosul (2019)", Rotten Tomatoes , Fandango , retrieved 2021-10-30
  8. ↑ Mosul (2020) Reviews, Metacritic , retrieved 2022-03-23
  9. ↑ "'Mosul' Cast Receiving ISIS Death Threats After Huge Viewership Numbers on Netflix for Iraq Drama". 13 January 2021.
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