“Lone Survivor” provides further proof that war is, indeed, hell.
The battle scene that takes up much of the film’s running time is a Hieronymus Bosch style glimpse into the very heart of battle. Grisly and gory, it is about pushing the limits of endurance as far as possible.
But “Lone Survivor” isn’t simply a shoot ‘em up.
Between the bullets is a complex story about morality and the men who put themselves in harm’s way.
The film is based on the real-life SEAL Team 10’s Operation Red Wings, a failed 2005—the movie’s title in itself is a spoiler—War in Afghanistan mission to locate, capture (or eliminate) Taliban leader Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami).
The carefully planned operation goes wrong almost as soon as the team—SO2 Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), LT Michael P. Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), SO2 Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch) and SO2 Matthew Axelson (Ben Foster)—touch ground in the Kush Mountains. Their job is hindered by faulty a communication radio, but the mission is undone when they are discovered by an older man and two boys.
The commandoes make the decision to let the four unarmed shepherds go, but their kindness comes back to haunt them when shortly afterwards a Taliban army descends on their position and they are hopelessly outnumbered.
There’s no gunfire in the first hour of “Lone Survivor.” The time is spent getting to know the characters, their situation and absorbing the gravity of the mission at hand. Then, sixty minutes in, it turns into a bullet ballet. But it is those opening minutes that make the payoff of the last hour so potent.
Without getting to know the brotherhood the characters share we won’t buy in later on when their bond and training are the only things that will decide their fate.
The acting is uniformly good. Walhberg is understated but undeniably powerful as the Luttrell. His character is the glue that holds the movie together, and he delivers.
As the sharp-tongued and direct Axelson Ben Foster is, well, Ben Foster. He’s one of the best actors working today and his portrayal is passionate, patriotic but grounded in truth. It takes some doing to deliver a line like, “Did they really shoot me in the ******* head?” with any measure of believability, but Foster manages.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is Taylor Kitsch. He had a bad couple of years after becoming a small screen star on “Friday Night Lights.” The promise of a big screen career seemed to evaporate in the trifecta of failure—big budget flops “John Carter,” “Battleship,” “Savages”—but here he finds his groove and reminds us of the charisma that made him a name in the first place.
“Lone Survivor” is a visceral experience. Not since “Saving Private Ryan” has a battle scene been so effectively rendered but at its core it isn’t a propaganda film or a slice of patriotism; instead it’s a stark reminder of the camaraderie of soldiers in the field.
Bring ear plugs and sun screen to The Kingdom. So many things blow up that you’ll need ear protection from the sound and tanning lotion to prevent getting a sun burn from the glare off the giant fireballs that light up screen.
Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx is Ronald Fleury, an FBI special agent who leads a rogue band of investigators—Chris Cooper’s explosives expert, an intelligence analyst played by Jason Bateman and a forensics specialist in the form of Jennifer Garner—to Saudi Arabia to track down and arrest the terrorists behind a brutal attack on a compound housing American oil company workers and their families. They have just five days to sift through the evidence and find the evildoers.
The Kingdom has a jittery, over-amped feel that suggests the director, Peter Berg, may have chugged one too many Red Bulls between takes. He stages the action scenes well, and creates a fair bit of tension—particularly in the film’s chaotic final twenty minutes—but I found myself occasionally wishing that the camera would stop flying around so we could focus and actually clearly see what was happening on screen.
Berg’s decision to keep the camera in almost constant motion mostly suits the action oriented tone of the film, unfortunately he doesn’t fare as well at creating compelling, fully rounded characters.
Foxx displays his usual charisma as the FBI team leader and has some nice moments, both tender and butt-kicking but the other members of his team are reduced to stereotypes—Bateman’s smart alec analyst, Cooper’s wise old investigator and Garner’s cute but steely forensics genius—that wouldn’t seem out of place on any of the CSI shows on television. The movie’s top character and best performance comes from Ashraf Barhom as the compassionate but deadly Arab colonel.
Aside from a masterful montage at the beginning of the film which traces the history of U.S.—Saudi involvement from the 1930s onwards, The Kingdom isn’t going to shed light on the conflict in the Middle East. It is essentially a western. They are the good guys and the bad guys and no shades of grey. Not every movie about the Middle East needs to dig deep into the politics of region, but The Kingdom’s take on the way to deal with terrorism, although crowd pleasing, turns the FBI into vigilantes and anyone in a caftan or a kepi into bad guys.
I wasn’t sure how they could possibly turn a board game into a movie, and now that I’ve seen “Battleship” I’m convinced that it can’t be done—very well, at least. What’s next, Jenga: This Time It’s Personal? Two-plus hours of soulless claptrap and joyless cacophony of twisted metal, AC/DC songs and angry aliens does not a movie make. I’d like to suggest a new title, “Shock and Awful.”
Based on the Hasbro board game Battleship, the movie begins when scientists discover a nearby planet with an atmosphere similar to Earth. When they make contact, instead of a hi-how-are-ya they are greeted with a full-on alien invasion. The only person standing between them and is Lieutenant Alex Hopper
(Taylor Kitsch), an undisciplined officer unwillingly thrust into power.
“Battleship” is one of those alien invasion movies in which you hope the aliens win. It takes forty minutes or so to get to the attack, and by then you are so tired of the Hopper Brothers (Kitsch and Alexander Skarsgård), the stoic admiral (Liam “Paycheque” Neeson) and his daughter Sam (Brooklyn Decker) that you pray the aliens (big lizard-eyed creatures in Iron Man drag) will make short work of the bunch of them so you can leave the theatre and do something productive with your time. Like watch paint dry. Or cut and apple in half and watch it turn brown. Both are more fun than “Battleship.”
The actors aren’t exactly to blame, however. Even though Taylor Kitsch blands it up and Rhianna continues the grand tradition of singers-turned-actors-who-should-stick-to-music, they aren’t helped by a script that plays like a greatest hits of every action movie script that came before.
Cliché Chart Toppers? “I didn’t sign up for this!” (That’s the action movie equivalent of the old guy line, “I’m too old for this…”) “I got a bad feeling about this!” (Kitsch says this after the aliens have destroyed much of Hawaii, so either he’s the King of Understatement or this is the worst written movie of the year.)
Also, can we call a moratorium on electric beams that shoot into the sky, opening portals to other planets? We’ve seen that in almost every sci fi movie in recent memory and it is an effect way past its expiration date.
“Battleship” is exactly what is wrong with summer movies. It’s unnecessarily long, unnecessarily loud, unnecessarily bombastic… just unnecessary. Like the alien attack in the movie, you don’t just watch this movie, you endure, hoping to survive another day.
You know who sunk this battleship? Director Peter Berg, that’s who.
“Lone Survivor” provides further proof that war is, indeed, hell.
