A film for middle America

Rating: 8/10 (5 February 2014)

Following making Battleship Peter Berg needed to redeem himself, so made his dream project, an adaptation of Lone Survivor, serving as his love letter for the Navy Seals. Based on the true story of Operation Red Wing, Lone Survivor tells a similar story to Black Hawk Down where a operation to target a Taliban goes wrong, leading to a SEAL team of four have to fight for their lives against large force of Taliban fighters.
The war action is brutal and bloody as Berg delivers a relentless firefight between the SEALS and the Taliban. The action was the best part of the film as Berg and his cinematographer use a hand-held cameras and a liberal use of blood packs, making the war scenes seem like Saving Private Ryan. But the SEALS goes through a lot of punishment, getting shot up, getting their parts of their bodies blown off and still keep on fighting.
There is a good cast and they do a solid job in their respective roles, being believable in their relationship. But the actors have little to work on: there is no characterisation, we do not know much about the men we are following and the main reason to support the Americans simply because the Taliban commander was worst, beheading people readily. This is a film that does not go into the complexities of the War in Afghanistan and simply made as a film about surviving in impossible odds as everything goes wrong, from the lack of support from outside and the radio going wrong early on.
The battle scenes were expertly done and fans of war films will enjoy that aspect of the film. But Lone Survivor is too thin of an experience on a story and character level.