In 2011, Benoît Magimel and Diane Kruger embarked on the war film “Special Forces”. The story of an ultra-dangerous extraction mission carried out by a commando, in which we find a real former “green beret” and figure of the marine commandos.
Special forceswar film made in France
In 2011, screenwriter and director Stéphane Rybojad directed his first feature-length fiction film: Special forces. This war film centers on a six-man commando from the COS (Special Operations Command) sent to a tribal area of Afghanistan for a dangerous extraction mission: free a French journalist and her Afghan companion from the hands of the Taliban.
Stéphane Rybojad knows his subject. He has in fact made dozens of reports on the French armed forces for French television as well as for foreign channels. And for his first fiction feature film, he has assembled a formidable cast. To embody these Special Forces “operators”, it is, among others, Djimon Hounsou, Benoît Magimel, Raphaël Personnaz and Denis Ménochet who don the fatigues. The journalist, Elsa, is played by Diane Kruger, and Mehdi Nebbou plays her companion, Amin.
A former Green Beret in the casting
Very realistic in his approach to his subject, Special forces was developed with the participation of the French army, which advised and trained the actors to try to make their actions as authentic as possible. Better yet, we find in the casting a real former member of the commandos of the National Navy, an ex-green beret known as “Marius“, and his real name Alain Alivon. In Special forceshe plays like this his own role“Marius”, one of the members of the commando sent to rescue Elsa and Amin.
Before entering the army at the age of 19 in 1984, Alain Alivon experienced a difficult childhood in Marseille, familiar with delinquency in the northern districts of his hometown. After being in police custody, a police officer advised him to go to the army if he wanted to get out. For Alain Alivon, it’s a revelation. At the age of 20, he volunteered for a marine commando training course. He finished top of his class and thus obtained the prestigious “green beret“.
After 22 years of active service, notably in Lebanon, Djibouti and Ivory Coast, he left the army in 2006. Having become, among other things, a technical advisor for cinema, he therefore appeared in front of the camera for Special forces, in the role of one of the six commandos. For the record, he is also in the casting of To the hilt in 2017, where he found Denis Ménochet, his partner in Special forces.
