Peter Berg writes and directs the true story of a doomed mission of four Navy SEALs in a Taliban stronghold of Afghanistan.
Based on the account of Marcus Luttrell, from getting to know the SEALs, their heart stopping mission to the inevitable rescue, Lone Survivor depicts these events and the men involved respectfully and at times with breath-taking authenticity.
An ensemble piece, the central actors Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster all deliver excellent performances that are neither self aggrandizing nor rose tinted. It is clear all the actors have the real life SEALs in the forefront of their minds at all times and do their uttermost to portray these men as honestly as possible.
To Berg’s credit, he allows a considerable amount of screen time for the audience to get to know these men properly. The disastrous mission is the centre piece of the movie and is expertly handled. Lasting over 40 minutes, attention is held throughout with every bone crunching collapse and impact felt in a film that never drags.
The film isn’t afraid to shy away from the more controversial aspects of the mission, where the SEALs debate what to do with four farmers. For a film accused of being jingoistic they could quite easily have skipped over this and to their credit they don’t.
The beginning of the film starts with actual footage of SEALs training, which does create the initial fear that this film is going to be nothing more than a recruitment video. This isn’t the case, but it does give certain scenes a patriotic tint which they may not otherwise have.
Considering the film depicts an actual event that happened in a war that is still ongoing, the film never addresses the war itself. As a result it lacks a context for the mission, taking away from the overall impact of the film.
The Afghanis are portrayed somewhat simplistically. The film certainly doesn’t portray all Afghanis as villains, but both the Pro-US and Taliban characters come across as some-what cartoon like.
Overall, this is a solid film with enough elements to elevate it just above the ordinary. But with the film failing to put the mission into context, it does lack an edge which the action sequences, good as they are, fail to make up for.
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