Lone Survivor (2014)

The box office receipts from this weekend indicate that Lone Survivor is a highly lucrative film, and it’s been compared to Saving Private Ryan.  While I’m not sure it’s as important a film as Spielberg’s take on World War II, it’s a compelling film that renders a true story in riveting detail, even if some of the storytelling itself is a little thin.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Marcus Luttrell, part of a four-man team (comprised also of Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, and Ben Foster) in pursuit of a terrorist in Afghanistan.  On the outskirts of an Afghani village, the mission goes horribly awry, putting the lives of the Navy SEALs in danger.

I’ll begin by saying that writer/director Peter Berg obviously has an immense respect for the work of servicemen like the ones portrayed in the film, and it’s refreshing to see a film this reverential; his last terrorism-themed movie, 2007’s The Kingdom, had a note of moral equivalency that still doesn’t taste right, but Lone Survivor just exudes a sense of unflinching admiration that might even turn off some cynical viewers.  But, as Phil Coulson says, “People might just need a little old-fashioned.”

Berg’s evident respect for the subject material and for Luttrell, who cameos as a SEAL in a few scenes, means that the combat sequences of the film are realistic and harrowing, highly effective at allowing the audience to feel some of the palpable terror that must come of being in such a situation – ambushed and outnumbered, staring down death.  Consequently, Lone Survivor is one of the more gripping films, and had the ending not been “spoiled” (see the title of the film and Luttrell’s presence on the PR circuits) it might have as suspenseful as Gravity because of how expertly directed both films were.

But Berg’s deft hand at the shootout scenes isn’t limited to just the one note.  Berg also knows when to punctuate the film with moments of levity, opportune placement of lines to elicit a smile or relieve the tension.  (Standout moments include a well-timed duck and a villager’s two-word summary of his opinion of the Taliban.)

What the film doesn’t manage to do very well is characterization.  On one level, portraying the SEALs as everymen allows the audience to put themselves in the soldiers’ shoes, heightening the anxiety of the situation as the danger escalates.  But on the other hand, the film feels a bit distanced when we don’t know much about the men or their personalities (it doesn’t help that some of them look very similar).  It’s not that the performances are bad – Wahlberg manages to suppress his Boston tough-guy persona enough to play up the real-life heroics of war – but the screenplay’s greater strengths lie in the violent action sequences and not in breathing much life into the characters themselves.

I wonder, though, if that’s not intentional.  Berg’s project here is clearly to valorize the real-life men who died during Operation Red Wings, so much so that he ends the film with an extended “in memoriam” montage that plays on the most basic heartstrings in the audience.  (Mine applauded at the end.)  There’s ultimately something missing from the film as a whole, but what we’re presented with is compelling enough and smartly put-together that it almost deserves better than a ghettoized mid-January release.

Lone Survivor is rated R “for strong bloody war violence and pervasive language.”  The violence is really quite brutal and often unpleasant to watch, frequently unrelenting after the first twenty minutes.  F-bombs pervade, as one would expect in a combat zone.