Dir: Peter Berg
Year: 2014
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Eric Bana, Ben Foster, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch
Genre: Action/War/Biography/Thriller/Drama
Cert: 15
I am still surprised when I see I've rated this a solid 5 stars, but I fucking stand by it for sure! Lone Survivor follows the true story of four Navy SEAL's, Marcus Luttrell, Michael Murphy, Danny Dietz & Matt Axelson all played by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch & Ben Foster. Our main man though is Marcus. He leads the team of four into Afghanistan to kill Taliban leader, Ahmad Shahd. While the men are nearing the enemy, they lose communications with their troops and are left alone in the trees. An alteration between them and a farmer sets in motion the ultimate fight for survival as they alert the town full of Taliban soldiers about their presence and has them out hunting for blood.
From what I have read about this actual ordeal, the only inaccuracy was that instead of this intense battle lasting 4 solid hours, it was condensed to about an hour of film time. Which is totally reasonable because it would get old quick if it was 4 straight hours of shooting with no breaks. This is probably the most edge of your arse war film you're likely to watch in for a long time. What begins as about 45 mins of bromance and character build, turns savagely into a brutally graphic and real armageddon. Usually things based on true events are dramatically altered to make it more interesting, but knowing that this is extremely accurate made it all the more intense and fantastic. The way these scenes were shot were done to absolute perfection, it wasn't blinding hand-held shit that gets very old quickly, everything was clear, you could see vividly what was happening in every scene, letting you know how much deep shit they were actually in.
As much as I love the Bourne movies, the hand-held up close style got boring and tiring to watch. In a lot of ways it's just a sneaky way to make you feel like you're in their eyes and use a blurred image to substitute some actual action. You get dizzy watching so you think you just saw something intense but in fact, you just watched some goon spin a camera around! It's a cheap idea at this point, being able to see clearly what is going in is WAY more intense, much like the shotgun scene in I Saw The Devil, I nearly shat myself! I'll be reviewing that soon actually cause I am dying to watch it again! Anyway, this is some enthralling stuff! Chocked full of nail-biting intensity and ACTUALLY had good acting.
This is what that fucking garbage from last year, Act of Valour should have been like. This wasn't "Amurca, we're the best, nobody can beat us, HOORAH!" like that fucking propaganda shite, this was "Okay, we're trained NAVY seals and we're absolutely FUCKED if we don't get out of here right now, we can die at any moment so lets leg it!". They don't just get a few scratches throughout either, they get shot numerous times (Even in the head) and have to walk around in agony. They break ribs left and right in what is some of the most amazingly shot stuff I've seen so far this year, the camera falling down a mountain with our guys every step of the way, it looks like they did a lot of the stunts themselves too! If so I commend them even more because this featured some of the most jaw dropping and amazingly brutal stunts I've seen in a long time. My back felt like it was a wreck watching this. Might been cause I was re-enacting the entire film in my living room, flipping over tables and smashing my head off the TV etc. Sure it's only brain damage, it's not liek it affekted my tipeng england.
Another nice touch that there was absolutely no CGI violence! The only CGI was during an explosion, which is unfortunate because film companies don't blow shit up anymore, it's all CGI... but all the blood and violence int his was practical so it didn't take you out of the movie at all, you didn't spend it going "That looks so fake" you spent it saying "Holy shit!", which is exactly how it should be! It was also beautifully scored by Explosions In The Sky, which will hopefully get them even more exposure! It's a drastic change from Peter Berg too, he's done plenty but I'll always remember him for his ultra dark crime comedy, Very Bad Things. To go from that to intense and powerful war biopic is pretty insane! This is a superb, edge of your seat thrill-ride all the way through and I recommend it with both of my balls. Enjoy!
Note: Hopefully this wont come to any stupid, pointless, hippy criticisms due to what happened in a cinema in the US. Apparently a man was texting throughout the movie and some fucking lunatic decided to shoot him dead for doing so... I can't imagine that will improve the film any... considering EVERYONE will be screaming, running around, popcorn flying about and then you being dragged to prison before getting a chance to finish it. I have the feeling anti-gun people will be bashing the film saying it influenced this killing, if they do, ignore them, they're delusional fucking spastics. Enjoy the movie!
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