Lone Survivor (2013)

Directed by: Peter Berg | 121 minutes | action, biography | Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Yousuf Azami, Ali Suliman, Eric Bana, Alexander Ludwig, Rich Ting, Dan Bilzerian, Jerry Ferrara, Rick Vargas

A war film with a title like ‘Lone Survivor’ does not pretend to come up with an exciting plot twist. When a team of four Navy SEALs is dropped in the mountains somewhere in Afghanistan, you know how this will end. Director Peter Berg (including responsible for the failed ‘Battleship’) adapted the biographical book by Marcus Luttrell, who was the only survivor to tell the story.

‘Lone Survivor’ begins with real images (or so it seems) of training programs, where young boys are trained to become one of the most exclusive units in the US military. Seeing what SEALs endured in their training adds some credibility to the perseverance of the four brothers who go down fighting. Because although the film is based on a true story, the contrast between the Taliban fighters and the American soldiers in survivability is almost absurd. While the dozens of Taliban men go down one by one after being hit once, the SEALs last a long time after all four of them have received multiple gunshot wounds. A head wound, shot fingers and some shrapnel don’t stop them from continuing until their very last breath. And they only take that last breath after taking down some enemies with their last bullets, against the glorious backdrop of the bright sun over the Afghan landscape.

In the end they lose the fight, but it is clear that the filmmaker wanted to portray the men as heroes. ‘Lone Survivor’ certainly has tense moments and some crazy action shots (the footage of them falling down the mountainside is so realistic you can feel the pain), but in the end it’s mainly a glorification of the US military. This is despite the noble role played by the Afghans who come to the rescue at the end of the film. If you can put that aside, ‘Lone Survivor’ is a fine entertaining war drama.