LONE SURVIVOR

The film is based on an actual U.S. Navy Seal operation that goes disastrously wrong. Four Seals on a clandestine assassination mission encounter a group of Taliban members and all hell breaks lose on a mountain in Afghanistan. The mere title is a foreshadowing of what we can expect at the end of the film, so don’t be shocked if every soldier dies save for the lone survivor. This film’s best attribute is it’s depiction of the intensity of modern warfare. The injuries sustained by the four men throughout the battle are visually horrifying and gruesome. But the dialogue is another story entirely. It’s strewn with hokey patriotic voice-overs and clichés such as “you can die for your country, I'm gonna live for mine” and “anything in life worth doing is worth overdoing. Moderation is for cowards.” Wahlberg, Kitsch, Hirsch and Foster all give decent performances but the screenplay deters them from fully fleshing out their characters. They seem like passé Hollywood versions of the actual people. Lone Survivor is director Peter Berg’s follow up to the appalling Battleship (2012). This film is evocative of another film based on a failed U.S. military operation; Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001). Whereas Black Hawk Down focused on the operation and subsequent events, Lone Survivor attempts to spotlight the bond between the four Seals and the humanity of both the Americans and the Afghans. This is all fine if it didn’t feel akin to a bona fide infomercial about the tenacity of the Navy Seals. Even the opening credits show actual training footage. Berg has made yet another film to add to the list of subpar films he’s made.

Rating: 5/10

S. V. Fernando