Tonight on Netflix: A powerful war movie from the directors of The Avengers, and it’s moving!

Available on the Netflix platform since 2020, Mosul is a terrifying and masterful dive into the last mission of an elite Iraqi unit to clear the city of Mosul from the last Daesh fighters.

Even as the war in Iraq draws to a close and the Islamic State in the Levant reasserts its grip on a country ravaged by years of fighting, Mosul, the country’s second city, remains mired in violent clashes. This is especially true of the streets of Nineveh, on the outskirts of the city…

In a city in ruins, where death awaits its inhabitants at the slightest misdemeanor and where life hangs in the balance, literally, this heroic unit has killed so many Daesh members that it is the only one not offered by the terrorist organization. Tovba. That is, the choice of captured Iraqi soldiers to switch sides: thus, members of the SWAT unit were systematically shot.

Needless to say, we honestly did not expect brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, who are well known to fans of the Marvel Universe, to make a film like this. came. But logically we have to be careful. The co-producers of Tyler Rake and its sequel, also for Netflix, however, by their own admission, thanks to the planetary triumph of the last episodes of the Avengers, were able to start their own production company and finally dedicate themselves. Much more personal projects that were close to their hearts.

titled for some time The city of a million soldiersFilmed in a semi-documentary and ultra-realistic approach, Mosul is first and foremost a true story, written and directed by Matthew Michael Carnahan, who wanted to make his first film as a director.

If the interested party enjoyed a comfortable budget for this type of production, we stay away from Hollywood envelopes, which in no way diminishes – on the contrary – the strength of the film, which moreover does not include only a Western actor. Adam Bessa’s exception. Everyone here speaks Arabic.

Result ? A dense, edgy, tense work that has the energy of a holy uppercut, carried by Adam Bessa (already seen elsewhere Tyler Rake), and, perhaps, even more so, the Iraqi actor Suhail Dabachi, the extraordinarily charismatic Major Jassem, the commander of this intervention unit, who paid a terrible price in blood in 2016 and 2018.