How Not to Conduct a Reconnaissance Mission

Rating: 7/10 (19 January 2014)

Lone Survivor is being compared to Saving Private Ryan. The firefight scenes in the movie are extremely realistic and give a good account of what it's like to be outnumbered and being hit from all sides. In this respect alone, Lone Survivor is on par with Saving Private Ryan.
Where things start to fall apart, though, is when the soldiers involved start falling on hard rocks multiple times but still manage to function. No matter how tough anyone is, or how well trained to handle pain, shock from such injuries sets in very quickly and will render any soldier combat ineffective. This is especially so at the high altitudes and low temperatures the soldiers were faced with.
Granted, the scenes showing the soldiers tumbling off the rocks was done for dramatic effect, but had it happened in reality, the chances of the soldiers being able to fight off the Taliban for any appreciable length of time after repeatedly falling like that would be slim.
The whole movie is almost a textbook case in how not to conduct a reconnaissance mission. I won't go through all the technical minutiae of why it failed. But the fact that it failed boils down to three things: poor command and control, no real air support, and poor unit discipline both in the reconnaissance team and at the base.
Where the movie really succeeds is in the portrayal of the bravery, fighting skill, and perseverance of the members of the reconnaissance team. Mark Wahlberg put in a superb performance, as did the members of the supporting cast.