Authentic and moving. Berg nailed it!

Rating: 9/10 (1 January 2014)

Lone Survivor is a an accurate portrayal of a true story about a mission that goes horribly wrong in northern Afghanistan. The attention to detail by the director from the mission down to the footwear of the SEALs is spot on, adding an even greater sense of realism to this gripping story. The fire fight, which basically consumes all of the 2nd act, had me on the edge of my seat, gripping my arm rests, and gave me a feeling of being right there in the battle. No jerking cameras and no cheesy first-person shooter video game shots. You really feel the isolation and desperation felt by the SEALs and even though I knew how the fight would end (from the book) I still felt myself holding out hope.
What this movie captures better than any I've seen, is the "fog of war" and that soldiers (using this term universally here) are human and can make mistakes. This mission is doomed by inaccurate pre-mission intelligence, bad communications due to the terrain, and the untimely appearance of local national civilians. These small break downs have the potential to ruin even the most well-planned operation and, while years of training prepare our nation's soldiers to handle these "fog" moments as best they can, sometimes the difference between success and failure, living and dying, comes down to luck. The raid to kill UBL in Zero Dark Thirty was a great success. But if that helo had crashed in a different part of the compound or at a different angle, there could have been deaths or men trapped in the wreckage, and the mission would have taken a completely different turn. Lone Survivor shows us what can happen when things go wrong and men are left fighting for their survival.
I can't rave enough about the authenticity of this movie. I've spent time in the mountains of northern Afghanistan and the terrain is spot on (the country is not just a big desert) and I've experienced communication "black holes" out there where satellite communication just doesn't work and you can't figure out why.
Lone Survivor is not political nor is it propaganda. It simple tells a story of survival and shows that war is an ugly thing. Hopefully people will remember this movie and take pause whenever they hear on the news about service men and women being killed in action in a land halfway around the world. Luttrell's survival allows him to pay proper tribute to those who lost their lives on that mountain and not just have them be another statistic in the war.