Lone Survivor (February 2014)

Official Australian release date: 20/2/14. Viewed: 17/2/14.

Director: Peter Berg

Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch

Genre: War / Action / True Story
Rating: MA

‘Lone Survivor’ is a very well-made and fast paced war film. It helps that it’s a true story out of Afghanistan and does a great job of setting the scene and characters in the first half hour, before putting you right in amongst the action for the final 90min. I really liked how some of the camerawork was frantic in the right moments and slow/steady in the other moments. Let me just say that when they ‘descend’ the hillside, you really feel it!

Is ‘Lone Survivor’ as good as ‘Saving Private Ryan’? That’s debatable, but it’s certainly better than ‘Black Hawk Down’ in my books, as far as modern war films go. There’s no politics involved, just survival, and this has plenty of teeth-gritting moments! It helps that there’s only really the four characters on their own in the wilderness – does a great job of showing the isolation.

There’s a fair bit of blood and violence, but nothing too grisly and it all looks very realistic – there’s no cohesion to what the soldiers (Navy SEALs, rather) do, they’re literally fighting for their lives as best they can. The photos at the end compared with the actors are good, although Peter Gabriel’s cover of “Heroes” would’ve been better served if it was the David Bowie original. Otherwise, a great score.

Overall: Excellent cinematography, score, acting and story make this a superb war film where you do care about the characters you’re watching.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.