A Good Film But You Do Feel It's Embellished A Bit Too Much

Rating: 7/10 (22 April 2015)

A NATO special forces mission in Afghanistan sees a four man team capture a senior Taliban commander and they manage to extricate him without firing a shot
A rather boring premise for a book which is why you'll never see it used . People don't like hearing about success in this context hence we get the horror stories of things going wrong in war . It appeals to both sides of the divide where war porn addicts can immerse themselves in gore and courage and jingoism while grief whores can gnash their teeth and tell themselves nothing in human nature is worse than war - not even eternal defeat and tyranny by a victorious enemy . This film LONE SURVIVOR based upon the true life account of a firefight in Afghanistan written by Marcus Luttrell might actually appeal to both sides but at the same time you can say it's guilty of having its cake and eating it . A four man Navy SEALS team goes in to hostile Taliban territory to keep tabs on a local warlord . As I said no one wants to hear about a mission that goes right so within a short period something goes wrong and things from bad to worse and even worser and we're not even halfway through the film yet
LS shows that war is hell but overdoes things and has embellishment . It's not enough for someone to be knocked off their feet by a grenade blast - they must be blown off the top of a hill , and bounce off rocks , bounce off some more rocks and bounce off even more rocks then their fall is broken - by rocks. It does seem difficult to swallow what some human bodies can endure where physics is concerned but I wasn't there nor am I a USN SEALS member either . But even so the film often hits wrong notes like a lengthy scene where the team discuss the possible execution a trio of goat herders in order to make a clean get away to their rendezvous point . Again I wasn't there but why would a special forces team consider what is effectively murder in order to keep their cover ? If the bodies are found then that would invite counter-murder with extreme and painful prior torture from the Taliban if captured . Likewise it's almost as if the unit have been able to predict that they'd be unable to contact base once they arrived at the rendezvous point . I don't want to accuse anyone of lying especially when I'm sat here on a safe sofa out of a war zone but little things like the things seen here don't really ring true . But as I said I wasn't there
Where LS deserves some credit is not portraying all Pashtuns as violent savages . Several years ago I had a brief online chat with a former security contractor who spent several years in Afghanistan . I asked about the Russian film 9TH COMPANY and if it was true of the Pashtun tradition of "Haram" seen in that film where if you're a guest of a Pashtun you're not allowed to be harmed . The former contractor whose name was Nick informed me that only was true but if you're a guest of a Pashtun village then the hosts have also a duty to Allah to defend you with their lives ! Despite all the understandable bad news coming of Afghanistan for decades Nick also told me if he hadn't met his wife he'd still be there if only because of Pashtun uber-hospitality .This is recreated in detail were the titular lone survivor crawls in to a local village though again the film overplays its hand a bit after this by having another action sequence And maybe this sums up LONE SURVIVOR perfectly . It's another film on the war is hell theme but the trouble with war porn is unlike sexual porn it ends up becoming ironically and unintentionally erotic . It's a good film from a technical point of view but you're left with the feeling it's more of a patriotic flag waver rather than being genuinely anti-war