Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, Eric Bana, and Alexander Ludwig.
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures
Runtime: 121 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2014
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This film is an American war drama based on a true story depicted in a 2007 book written by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson titled, “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10”. It was a New York Times best seller. It tells the story of four Navy SEAL soldiers, who embarked on a secret mission to kill a high-level al-Qaeda Taliban leader, and only Luttrell survived. The film is intensely patriotic and pro-war, and there is never any question that it is all about the “proud tradition (America is) bound to behold”.
There is skepticism about the US Iraq-Afghanistan war effort, especially as the effort is wound down. Against this background, and almost the complete absence of debate in the movie about the politics of the war effort itself, the film intentionally cherishes the bravery of American life lost in war.
The story behind the film focuses on a team of soldiers who died on a mission that was bound to fail, and that went horrifyingly wrong in 2005. There is nothing in the movie that deals with the emotional readiness of the soldiers for warfare, or the soldiers own political feelings about their involvement. It focuses solely on the mission at hand, which was to hunt down and kill a local Taliban commander. What begins as a hunt of the Taliban, though, turns quickly into a hunt for the four soldiers.
The unit led by Luttrell (played in the movie by Mark Wahlberg) was trapped by the Taliban in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan and found itself up against overwhelming odds. Eric Bana plays the senior strategic officer back at base, and Alexander Ludwig plays an inexperienced recruit who was fortunately left behind. Punctuating the movie at various points are flashback pictures of women and children back home, who faced their loved ones never returning alive. The title of the movie clearly signals that will happen, but the scenes serve to humanise the soldiers and increase the tension surrounding the inevitable.
Without politics, character development, or real debate about the issues, it is easy to assume this film is just a propagandist war movie, but that is unfair comment. The film is actually a non-preaching portrayal of the tragedy of war that is directed by Peter Berg to produce a cathartic effect for those affected by the lives that were lost, and those grateful for the effort that was made. In a movie about American greatness, dying for one’s country is something, the film says, that must be revered.
The fate of the members of Luttrell’s unit – Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch), Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), and Matt Axelson (Ben Foster) – is never in doubt. The mission fails for no other reason than it should never have been mounted. The film follows step by step the planning and execution of the mission, and the movie arouses very strong emotions because the viewer always knows what lies ahead. The battle sequences are predictably violent, brutal, and gruesomely realistic, and the injuries sustained by the four soldiers in the Taliban’s assault are almost unbearable to watch. When the serious fighting starts, the action is relentless, and the obvious confusion of the American soldiers, poor management back at base, and their failure to establish communication back to base, tragically seal their fate.
This is not a thought-provoking war movie, as “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012) and “Hurt Locker” (2008) were. It aims for, and effectively communicates 100% US patriotism, and its morality and talk are almost entirely military in nature. Moments exist, though, where killing is considered unjust, and Luttrell’s life is eventually saved by a sympathetic, Afghanistan villager, who puts his own community at great risk.
This is a technically proficient, authentic-looking, well-directed and acted movie that deals with patriotism in a moving way. The movie is a tremendous story of courage, valour and commitment. It is filled with patriotic fervour felt deeply in tragic circumstances, and it confronts the viewer constantly with the emotional and physical stresses of war.
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