LONE SURVIVOR - 4th March 2014

The opening montage of 'LONE SURVIVOR' which I saw last night shows real footage of US Navy Seals being put through their long, painful, arduous, emotional paces as they train up for a coveted place in this pinnacle of military service. It is not for the faint hearted as these Navy Seals in Training are taken to, and beyond, the realms of physical and mental endurance. This however, sets the scene for the film we are about to see, based on a true story from just a few short years ago.

Directed by Peter Berg who has a deft touch with closely fought action (refer 'BATTLESHIP' and 'THE KINGDOM') this film stars Mark Wahlberg in the lead role as one of four Navy Seals dropped deep into Taliban country in Afghanistan for the purposes of taking out an Al-Qaeda king-pin in a remote mountain village. When things go awry and the merry band of men are uncovered by local goat herders we have Wahlberg and his three other 'Brothers' played by Ben Foster, Taylor Kitsch and Emile Hirsch confronting the enemy and needing to get the hell outta there! Armed with their exhaustive Navy Seal training and some pretty sophisticated military weaponry the exchange of fire takes place on the side of a mountain high up in the tree line . . . but not without casualty, and mostly on the Taliban side.

Berg is well versed with showing us the ravages of modern day warfare, and the detail of close quarter combat which he delivers in spades here. The fire fight between the two groups is very well executed in its authenticity and lasts for about an hour on screen, during which time our four heroes have to jump into oblivion over ravines and rocky outcrops to escape rapid gun fire, machine gun attack and mortars exploding all around them. These sequences alone are breathtaking and heart stopping as their bodies fall end over end crashing into boulders, tree stumps and then the sudden collision with the ground - every impact here is felt, heard and seen and at the end you'll feel as though it was you! The body count on the Taliban side is significant, and the wounds delivered to our four Navy Seals that ultimately cost three of them their lives is gut wrenching. Eric Bana co-stars as the officer overseeing this mission and having to deal with the fallout from the nearest Air Base at Bagram.
This film delivers in the spectacle, the actors portraying the four Navy Seals who went in that day while only one came out do so convincingly, and the dialogue is grounded in the type of BS that four blokes on a mountain side would talk about to while away their time until the bullets start flying, and the blood starts flowing. The storyline though is thin and this is the films undoing. On this basis it falls short of the benchmark movie of this genre 'BLACK HAWK DOWN' which delivers the whole package.

 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-