Following in the footsteps of Extraction here comes Mosul, a new action flick produced by the Russo Brothers. Matthew Michael Carnahan wrote the movie, which “tells the true story of one group of Iraqi men who fought ISIS when the terrorist group took their homes, families, and city.” Mosul previously played the Venice Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival.
THR has the scoop on Mosul, a new action movie produced by the Russo Brothers headed to Netflix. It’s based on a true story, and inspired by Luke Mogelson’s 2017 The New Yorker piece, “The Desperate Battle to Destroy ISIS.” The film follows “ne group of Iraqi men who fought ISIS when the terrorist group took their homes, families, and city” and “focuses on the Nineveh SWAT team, a renegade police unit who waged a guerrilla operation against ISIS in a desperate struggle to save their home city, located in northern Iraq and site of major battled in the mid-2010s.”
When Mosul played at TIFF, the official festival write up said the movie “drops us right in the centre of urban warfare, but also allows for telling moments that reveal the men beyond their combat roles” and added that Mosul is a “rare American film designed to bring Iraqi perspectives forward, Mosul is both muscular and humane.”
Waleed Elgadi, Hayat Kamille, Ben Affan, Suhail Dabbach, Adam Bessa, Is’haq Elias star, with Matthew Michael Carnahan writing and directing. This is Carnahan’s feature directorial debut, but his screenplay credits include World War Z, Deepwater Horizon, Dark Waters, and the Russos-produced 21 Bridges. He also wrote State of Play, which is a nifty little political thriller that I quite enjoyed even though absolutely no one talks about it anymore.
After reading the New Yorker piece that inspired the film, Carnahan said: “I read the article, and I talked to Joe and Anthony [Russo] immediately after. I told them, ‘I think this has to be a film, I think it has to be in Arabic.’ They not only didn’t hang up – and when the conversation continues after that, you know you’re in with great people – they were like, ‘We’re with you, we think that’s the only way you can do this movie.'”
Todd Makurath, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Patrick Newall, Mohamed Al-Daradji, Wang Zhongjun, Wang Zhonglei, and Hu Junyi all serve as executive producers on Mosul, while Jeremy Steckler, Mike Larocca, and Dawn Ostroff produce along with the Russos. Mosul will premiere on Netflix sometime in November 2020.