Parents' Guide to Dirty Angels

Director Martin Campbell's violent military mission isn't exactly a "female Expendables," despite the team-rescue storyline and all of the gruesome blood splatter. Dirty Angels smartly opts out of taking the Expendables' "this is all fun" approach to its shoot-'em-up trappings, because its subject matter is deadly serious. Audiences won't be—and should never be—cheering for kills. As in actual military situations, the threats are real and extreme, and sometimes unthinkable decisions have to be made. Dirty Angels asks hard questions: What do you do to save a life? Whose lives are more valuable than others? Who has the courage to make those kind of decisions—and then take the responsibility for the consequences? All of that said, the film does still feel somewhat like an exercise in gruff leadership among all of its explosions, mass murders, and violence as a form of power.

The ensemble is large, but the screenwriters create memorable characters with nicknames that help distinguish them. (For instance, co-star Maria Bakalova plays Teresa, the only blonde, and is a bomb expert nicknamed "The Bomb," helping viewers quickly identify her and her function in the group.) While blow-'em-up military action films are standard Hollywood fare, this one is unusual in showing women as leaders who demonstrate strategy, skill, and unwavering courage. It's worth noting that, to provide more context for everything that transpires in the film, it might be helpful for families to briefly read up on the events that took place in Afghanistan in 2021 (after the United States and United Kingdom withdrew their troops) and what's going on in the country now.