A solid and moving story turned into a mainstream action film

Rating: 8/10 (31 January 2014)

Lone Survivor was one of those films that I didn't particularly desire to see but it was playing at the right time for me to see a film so in I went. It was basically what I anticipated it to be and that isn't a bad thing at all. Lone Survivor is a riveting, dramatic, well acted and often hard to watch story based on the impossible survival of a US Armed Forces soldier. I think under the proper direction and script this could have been as big and as accepted as Zero Dark Thirty (an already completely inferior film in my books) What I mean to say is that this powerful story could have been less mainstreamed to be more critically accepted and more focused on the powerful emotion behind it. Instead they chose to aim for the general public as its demographic and that's okay because it is very entertaining but how much of it was accurate? Honestly, I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps I should read the book but I kept questioning whether these four men were truly shot multiple times, time after time like they were bulletproof and kept going...including one of them being shot in the head and still upright and talking. All of this is indeed possible but I want to know whether it was realistic to THIS situation. After a little bit of a slow start, the film really starts rolling and will leave you breathless. It has easily one of the best and horrifying scenes of someone falling down a mountainside. It literally felt painful to watch it.
I am really becoming a big fan of Mark Wahlberg. I think he's a very talented star, one of the best in Hollywood right now, and he does action very, very well. This is no exception. I thought maybe being that he was such a big star that he might not fit into this cast but he does...flawlessly. He brings a raw emotion and power to the role and he doesn't start as the key player but by the end he is the clear cut star. The first part of the film struggles to really get you familiar with the main crew. They drop obvious breadcrumbs like one of them is buying a horse for his woman, the other is dating or married to an Asian woman...things like that. It isn't until half way through the film where you really start to understand and connect to these characters. Taylor Kitsch was my least favourite on the team. No offence to him but his character felt like it was overly dramatic. His death scene felt ridiculous under the circumstances of a movie. The slow motion falling, the heroic pose on his knees on a mountainside with the sun rising over the beautiful landscape...it was hokey. It was like they were trying to spoof an action hero using Kitsch and his performance suffers because of it. Emile Hirsch on the other hand was excellent. He was charismatic, interesting, and made his character stand out and feel believable. Ben Foster...man I love this kid...and I always forget about him because he'll do a big movie and then vanish for a long while. While here he is again in the best role in the movie I think. He does an amazing job of making you feel like you're right there with him and his intensity and emotion easily trumps everyone else in the movie. Foster needs a breakout role and soon because he is very talented. Eric Bana and Alexander Ludwig round out supporting cast that were worth mentioning in very small roles but important and effective.
Something I really liked about this film was that it wasn't your typical American military film where everything works out great and the mission is accomplished and go join the military now. This was a brutal and horrifyingly bad mission gone very very wrong. It is more a story of survival than it is military. Peter Berg irritates me as a director. He has a lot of experience but I've never cared much for his style for some reason. All his films just feel okay to me like there is more that could have been done but he doesn't bother because he's aiming for a certain demographic and "they won't care." I'm completely putting words in his mouth but it just feels that way. Lone Survivor could have been a WOW and instead its a...yah that was good. The problem is that I feel like this powerful survival story is mostly forgettable once you're out of the theatre. That reduces it to mindless entertaining and a story like this should be anything but. It is visceral at times, powerful, violent, entertaining...it is absolutely worth seeing. I sort of expected more emotion while watching it though one particular line almost got to me. One of the best scenes, acted and directed, is the scene when they are trying to decide what to do about the compromise in front of them. It is interesting and fascinating to watch how that unfolds. Check it out and take it for what it is and you will enjoy it. 8/10