“Mission Afghanistan”, directed by Sam Mendes (1917) and produced by Paramount Pictures (Mission: Impossible series), opens with a CNN news anchor announcing the then US President Donald Trump’s new deal with Taliban in Qatar agreeing to withdraw all US soldiers from the war-torn nation by May 2021. The scene cuts to a remote mountainous region in Afghanistan showing a large group of Taliban fighters dancing and firing in the air celebrating the deal.

The plot then intercuts into two threads running in parallel – one shows Taliban brutalising the people of Afghanistan, occupying villages and towns in the borders of Afghanistan and advancing towards Kabul from all sides and the other thread shows real video snippets of US presidential election campaigns, swearing-in of new US president Joe Biden and his subsequent announcement to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by end of August 2021. Military commander John Christian (Dwayne Johnson), who is on the ground in Afghanistan, is given 31 days to defeat the Taliban, hand power to the democratically-elected Afghan government and ensure all American citizens are taken back to America.

John, meanwhile, develops feelings for an Afghan woman Saira (Warina Hussain), who also happens to be the seventh wife of Taliban commander Mullah Al Zakhari (Paymān Maādi). Saira also likes John but is unable to express her feelings to him out of the fear of reprisal from her husband and his gang of bloodthirsty followers. John convinces Saira to work as a spy for the Americans and promises to free her from her husband and take her to USA after the end of the mission. As the US army make rapid gains in the war, Mullah Al Zakhari discovers that it’s Saira who has been leaking Taliban’s strategies to the US army. John now needs to race against time to defeat the invading Taliban jihadists and save the people of Afghanistan and at the same rescue the love of his life from the clutches of Mullah Al Zakhari.

The battle scenes between the US Army and Taliban in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan and the scenes where John engages in a hand to hand combat with the Taliban militants have been excellently cinematographed by Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant) and wonderfully complimented by background score from Hans Zimmer (Inception). Dwayne Johnson looks convincing as a superhuman US soldier who destroys Taliban fighters with bare hands and Paymān Maādi looks menacing as the antagonist.

Mission Afghanistan has been hailed by critics as “the most authentic war film ever” and credited for getting the audiences back to the cinemas in large numbers following the pandemic. The war-drama-action-thriller is widely expected to sweep the awards at Oscars 2022.