“Lone Survivor” is an outstanding war film. It is probably one of the best that has been made in recent years.
It was adapted from the book “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10” by Marcus Lutrell. Directed by Peter Burg, the film stars Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Eric Bana.
The movie tells the story of the doomed covert mission by Navy SEALS called Operation Redwing in 2005 to confirm the location of a Taliban leader in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. Things go wrong as soon as the team has reaches their designated observation point.
Their communications equipment is non-functional, which forces them to change location and leads to their discovery by the Taliban. The four are faced with a moral dilemma: do they follow the rules of engagement and release the goat herders they’ve captured, or do they kill the likely Taliban sympathizers?
The battle scenes that follow are brutal, illustrating in graphic detail the wounds the SEALs suffered before dying. Yet even as they are mortally wounded, they continue on “Always in the fight.” They expressed their brotherhood and unity in various ways throughout the entire film, using humor and the unwillingness to accept defeat to motivate each other.
The director and actors did a phenomenal job of portraying the men in a genuine manner in the conversations they have with each other about weddings, gifts and attractive bridesmaids. The emails between them and their family members are touching and another display of their humanity.
Another way the director Berg allows the audience to connect with the SEALs is through the use of actual Navy footage of SEAL BUDs training. It demonstrates to us how dedicated and mentally and physically tough they must be.
With a running time of 121 minutes, the film was full of action, which should appeal to a large audience. It would have been nice to develop the characters more fully and stick to the events in the book as they occurred, but the director’s intent was to tell the story of the mission while making an action-packed Hollywood film, and he succeeded.
Despite Berg’s creative license with the timeline, he successfully brought a military mission closer to home for us all, and we can appreciate the ultimate sacrifice of our military.
Grade: A-
Director: Peter Berg
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, Eric Bana
Rated: R for battle scenes and language Running Time: 121 minutes