What do the words honor, brotherhood and the homeland mean to people? For many, these three words are what to fight for in the ever-growing struggle against terrorism.
This theme is what the 2013 American war film Lone Survivor speaks on. In its attempt to explain these concepts, however, it has some viewers scratching their heads trying to figure out what it was trying to accomplish.
Lone Survivor is a re-enactment film based on the book of the same name directed by Battleship director Peter Berg and stars Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Eric Bana in the roles of a four-man Navy SEAL team trying to track down wanted Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.
The film starts leaving audiences anxiously holding their breath as they wait to see chaos break loose in a confusing series of montages showing grueling training and action scenes in the present before quickly throwing them back into the past before the failed mission had started.
One of the main themes that was touched on in the first half of Lone Survivor is the concept of brotherhood between soldiers. At the very beginning of the film, we see the team talking about their relationships and messing around in between missions. It briefly serves as a way to remind us of their humanity, and that they are not just killing machines. To further show the brotherhood between the men, we also see holding fraternity-like meetings, such as before they indoctrinate one of the new recruits. However, this is where the film begins to fall short.
First off, after the scene where a newbie is allowed to join the SEAL fraternity in the first ten minutes of the film, the viewers only see him briefly one more time before he is forgotten by the rest of the film. This contributes to a major drawback of the film in that a lot of screen time in Lone Survivor is often unfortunately wasted on overly long scenes or montages with dialogue that lacks good narrative content, taking too much time to describe how and why they are going to capture their target, rather than doing a more brief summary.
A second drawback is the apparent lack of characterization by the actors. Other than when we are first briefly introduced to characters and their families back home, we know little to nothing about who they are or how they think as individuals, which in turn makes it difficult to connect with them when they are fighting for survival.
Should you go see Lone Survivor? Clocking in at two hours with its lack of characterization and overly long scenes, I wouldn’t recommend it to all but I would recommend it to those who have served or know someone serving in the war or are familiar with the backstory of the film. Still, Saving Private Ryan would be a better choice with the same morals and same story, but a different war.
