Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor (2013) recounts Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan in 2005. It is adapted from Marcus Luttrell's book and the title tells you the outcome in advance. Four SEALs tracking a Taliban commander run into civilian goatherds. Kill them and the mission continues. Let them go and their position is exposed. They let them go. What follows is a siege. The central section is that firefight and it plays close to real time. Peter Berg builds it out of sound and physics rather than effects: falls down rock faces, the sound of bone, the impact of rounds. The military advisers were used heavily and it shows. The criticism is this. The film is extremely good at conveying what combat is like and never once asks why anyone is there. The Afghan characters only become human in the final section, which is based on a real event and on the Pashtunwali code. Good for: war films, true event adaptations, and sustained action. Less good for: the violence is genuinely severe and injuries are shown plainly. Anyone wanting a political question or a neutral view of the war will not find one here.