Lone Survivor (2013)

Some have cast doubts on the verisimilitude of parts of this picture. Of course, those who impugn whether some events really happened or whether they happened the way they are depicted in the movie neither underwent the kind of training Navy S.E.A.Ls do nor did they ever find themselves in circumstances remotely approaching those of the four comrades. We do not know what punishment the human body is truly capable of withstanding until we are put to an extreme test, gods forbid.

All I can say is that, regardless of whether this movie is accurate 100%, 0% or anything in between, it brought me to tears. I can honestly not remember the last time a Hollywood movie did that.

Very moving, very poignant, very touching. For that alone, as well as for keeping me riveted for the whole of two hours (which is quite a feat given my cynical and jaded nature), it deserves unalloyed plaudits.

Fmovies: If there is one thing that this film will accomplish is to make you feel something. I assure you you will not get bored watching it. Now, what you will feel will no doubt be up to you.

For myself, I felt mostly rage against a botched mission in an ineffective war. Raytheon should be annoyed that a movie about a mission failed primarily because of communication issues showed their red flashy brand on the comms equipment.

I wanted the characters to succeed, to survive, but I could not ignore the fact that they were soldiers being there only to kill an enemy commander. Having all Americans die in slow motion while scores of Taliban died instantly and kind of stupidly didn't help with the empathy. Also showing pictures of dead soldiers with their families with a pathetic American remake of Bowie's Heroes singing in the background at the end of the movie just fueled more rage. People in the field try to carry out their mission and survive, while their deaths become political and mediatic material. I didn't enjoy that.

On the other hand, the fights were realistic, the subject based on real events and, outside the pathetism described above, I did not detect a bias towards one side or the other. You will witness two hours of low tech war in all of its horror and stupidity. The actors also play well, although I like Mark Wahlberg in almost everything he does.

The story, while showing the preparation, courage and resilience of four soldiers in enemy territory, also showed other things, like the logistical blunders that lead to stupid deaths, over-reliance on technology that doesn't really work as you expect and how choices have consequences on the ground that are beyond the ability of normal courts to understand, whether looking from the legal or moral angle.

I liked a lot about the movie how it made you think long after it was over. What would have happened if they just killed the herders? What would have happened if they tied them up, went a bit down, risked a sniper shot at the enemy commander, then just ran? What would have happened if the Pashtuni would have ignored the wounded American or would have killed the Taliban scout force when they came to them? How would the mission have gone if the four guys would have known from the get go that they would be completely alone, with no support or hope for extraction?

Overall, a very emotional movie, two hours long, that shows more a general type of heroism than one with a specific purpose. Nicely directed and acted. A bit over dramatic, but then that's to be expected. Worth watching.

Greetings from Lithuania.

I read some reviews about "Lone Survivor" where it was mentioned alongside to a "Saving Private Ryan" - you can throw a rock at me if this comes close to "Saving Private Ryan" which is beyond many moons and seas compared to "Lone Survivor".

"Lone Survivor" is good action movie, with some heroic stuff (they definitely couldn't avoid that...), and i know that it's based on real events, thats why i'm giving it 8, because many of things displayed in picture were sadly true, many, but definitely not all. When someone is being killed in this movie (exept for bad guys from Taliban), it's shown in a similar way as Jim Caviezel aka.Jesus was suffering in "The Passion of the Christ" - only true American heroes die like that, not afghans who are more or less just a meat between bullets and Americans in this movie.

Overall, i liked this action picture, the sound design and sound editing were really top notch (no wonder it got 2 Oscar nominations) - you can hear every detail in the forest, every breaking bone (ye, the fall from cliffs scene was gripping). Actors were just OK, nothing special. The gunfight was terrific at least in the beginning of battle, truly terrific sound design and camera work. Later, well, when bad guys were shooting with RPG's every 2 min to our heroes, and they were suffering real good but still were able to do some heroic stuff, the tension was kinda lost.

Overall, 8/10 for me because of good production values and for that it is based on real events.

Lone Survivor fmovies. Holy sh*t......

You get so many action movies nowadays following familiar formulas that when you watch one of them you know that just when the good guy is about to get overcome by the enemy, the backup arrives and helps him. The formula desensitizes you.

But when a movie is based on a real story, the good guys sometimes do not come. They do not come in an hour; they do not come in a day; and if they come, they are not invincible. Real problems do not follow formulas. Real life is sobering in its beauty and its horror.

Lone Survivor does not have a very original or interesting premise for an action movie. A squad of US navy SEALs is dispatched on an assassination mission. Things do not go as planned.

However, the quality of the cinematography, solid acting and good action is what makes this such a great film.

Out of all the actors getting to play a part not one is bad. Not one fakes it. It feels that everyone is trying to do their best.

The film is also gorgeous. It didn't have to be. It is. The Afghanistan these guys are in is fake because the entire movie was shot in the United States, but it looks authentic and breathtaking.

The action is raw and graphic. Not in a guts-on-the-floor kind of way, but falling-down-a-cliff-side kind of way. Again, you can feel that the people have tried to do a good job. You know how just much they tried? Broken ribs and punctured lungs were involved in the making of this movie.

If there is one problem I have with the film is that it has a self-imposing limit to how big or interesting it can be. It is a story about one military operation and nothing else. No background stories for the characters, no side events, and barely any relationship development. I remember as a kid I was really fascinated by the military ops and wrote a story, as good as I could, about an imaginary mission. Even as I was writing it, I realised that it can never be truly interesting to read because the range of the story is too small. And this film is like that. What's worse, the title of this film gives away the ending. It is basically a giant spoiler.

But it is a testament to the movie's quality that, even though the movie gives almost no background information to the characters, it still managed to really make me care about them. Even with weights on its legs, the film still manages to make such an interesting run.

If you read the book and heard the interviews with the actual "lone survivor" you know that this movie got as close to the real events as possible. The 4 actors really gave it their all. Beginning long before shooting when they started their training so they would look realistic. This movie is also the most visceral experience since "Saving Private Ryan". There were falls in this movie that actually hurt more just watching than when I broke my foot 2 years ago. And in the making of you see that crazy stunt people actually did those falls, supposedly without dying. It's of course impossible to spoil this movie given it's title but it's important to note that the guy who helped him risked his whole village for "The Americans" Safety. And he didn't think twice about it. Sometimes we forget that not all of them are Taliban. After all is said and done this is a must see if there ever was one.

The movie is not easy to watch. Right at the beginning you'll some training "videos" (more like footage) from the real people that are depicted in this movie. But it will be apparent a couple of moments later, that there is a lot of Death to follow. It's almost a case of what can go wrong will go wrong. And while there are a lot of other outcomes that this could've taken, decisions had been made, consequences had to be taken (upon).

What really gets you though are not some clichés about soldiers (and I think this stays as much as possible away from them), but the fact, that this feels as real as it can be, without you actually being in a war. Mark Wahlberg and the other actors have to go through a lot, when ... well you know what hits the fence. And it does hit pretty hard. Not for anyone squeamish, this is fraught with tension ...