Mosul Parent Guide

The city of Mosul was once one of the biggest in Iraq – but since it fell to Daesh (also known as ISIL or ISIS) in 2014, it has been little more than a battlefield housing an endangered civilian population and a group of determined soldiers set on clearing out the occupation. These Iraqi soldiers have been such a bane to Daesh troops that they are summarily executed if captured. Their reputation is formidable and they are as admired by local Iraqis as they are feared by their enemies. So when rookie cop Kawa (Adam Bessa) runs into the Mosul SWAT team, he joins with Major Jasem (Suhail Dabbach) to take the fight to Daesh. But urban warfare is complicated, and things in Mosul change quickly…

In a movie like this, you’re walking a fine tightrope: make it too violent and you’re just being gross for shock value; don’t include enough detail and you’re functionally whitewashing war crimes. Mosul does a pretty good job of finding a middle ground where there is some accurate violence, but not so much that the movie is just murder for murder’s sake. The violence is still gruesome and unpleasant – it has a certain reality to it which is certainly disturbing – but some of the worst of it happens off-screen. The other primary concern for parents is going to be the profanity. There again, Mosul scales back a little. Soldiers are a famously foul-mouthed lot (see The Outpost for a more realistic measure of military profanity), but this film limits that to fewer than two dozen serious profanities.

It’s refreshing to see a movie about conflict in the Middle East that isn’t about some white guy who swings in from New York to fix everything. It’s also honest, because that clearly hasn’t worked in real life, considering the ongoing problems in the region. And it gives the movie greater emotional resonance - these stories are so much more affecting when the characters involved have a personal stake in the problems they’re fighting to solve. All the members of the SWAT team lived in Mosul before the occupation, and many of their families did as well. Nearly all of them have lost family to Daesh, and as a result, this is a deeply personal conflict. American war movies tend to be about the psychological damage soldiers face, which is considerable – but Mosul addresses that along with a host of other challenges that you wouldn’t get in a movie about the U.S. army. This isn’t a fun or easy watch, but it is an interesting one. Maybe we should add “watch local” to our cinematic lexicon.