February
01
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LONE SURVIVOR
LONE SURVIVOR (15)
Run time: 121mins
Director: Peter Berg
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, Ali Suliman, Alexander Ludwig, Eric Bana
Synopsis: Lone Survivor tells the incredible tale of four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level al-Qaeda operative. They are ambushed by the enemy in the mountains of Afghanistan, and find themselves faced with an impossible moral decision, whilst isolated from help and surrounded by a much larger force of Taliban ready for war.
This visceral and gruelling film from Peter Berg (Collateral, Battleship) is based on a best-selling book by Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg) and is dedicated to Operation Red Wings.
Luttrell was the only one of the four elite US Navy SEALs who survived the disastrous covert mission in the Hindu Kush mountains, Afghanistan in June 2005. Under cover of darkness, buddies Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch) and Matthew Axelson (Ben Foster) are dropped by helicopter in the remote mountain region. In a village below is their target: Ahmad Shah, an al-Qaeda commander claimed to be responsible for killing twenty marines the previous week. But the ill-fated mission gets off to a bad start when the SEALs run into a trio of goatherds. Faced with a profound moral dilemma, they soon find themselves surrounded and heavily outnumbered by the Taliban. This intense, brutal and involving combat film immerses audiences in the SEALs’ terrifying experience relentlessly in the harrowing firefight and transmits the fear when they realise their communication systems have failed. There is a lot of blood and gore.
The film’s opener is shots of Navy SEALs’ training and camaraderie and it ends with a tribute to the real men involved. But it is an American war film and how you feel about recent history will determine how successfully free of propaganda you feel it is.
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
