{"id":29097,"date":"2014-01-13T12:11:02","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T17:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=29097"},"modified":"2014-01-13T12:11:02","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T17:11:02","slug":"lone-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2014\/01\/lone-survivor\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLone Survivor\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As good as this film is, \u201cLone Survivor\u201d is a pretty terrible title as it contains a huge spoiler. The story follows a four-man team of Navy SEALs sent to Afghanistan to assassinate a Taliban leader. As soon as I saw the trailer, I said aloud, \u201cSo\u2026 three of them die?\u201d Granted anyone who is familiar with the real-life incident, has read the book by lone survivor Marcus Luttrell, or has seen Luttrell in his various media appearances knows what\u2019s going to happen, but I still would have preferred some mystery. Fortunately there are enough positive elements in the film to make up for the lack of suspense over the characters\u2019 fates.<\/p>\n

The team is made up of Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), Matthew Axelson (Ben Foster), Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch) and Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch). After an opening montage on the toughness of SEAL training, we\u2019re introduced to our characters and learn a bit about their personal lives (ironically Luttrell\u2019s seems to come up the least). We also follow Shane Patton (Alexander Ludwig), a new arrival at the characters\u2019 camp, as he introduces himself to the others. I probably could have done with less Patton in favor of developing the others, as his character is barely seen after the main four go off on their mission.<\/p>\n

The mission goes awry when the team runs into radio trouble. And they put themselves at a bad angle for the shots they need. And the target\u2019s entourage is bigger than expected. And they\u2019re found out by some local goat herders. The trailers make it look like the team spends a lot of time trying to decide what to do with the civilian witnesses, but the scene is actually quite quick. Then again, the decision carries a lot of weight, so to Luttrell it probably felt like it took forever.<\/p>\n

Action scenes ensue and they are by far the best parts of the movie. The shooting is less bloody than I expected, but what these scenes lack in crimson they make up for in sound. The film\u2019s sound team really outdid themselves here because every single gunshot will strike the fear of death into you. Even more powerful than the gunshots are the sounds the team makes as they tumble down embankments. There\u2019s a lot of crunching and we can\u2019t tell what\u2019s breaking but we know it can\u2019t be good. The falling scenes are the movie\u2019s secret weapon.<\/p>\n

Less exciting is the final act of the movie. These scenes are undeniably important to the story (and to Luttrell personally) but they feel anticlimactic. It\u2019s like the film wanted to end at a certain point and then remembered that it had to include these scenes so it tacked them on. There\u2019s an odd tonal shift to these scenes, perhaps because Luttrell was in a damaged state at the time and it affected his memory and narrative voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cLone Survivor\u201d will be best remembered for its action scenes, and what excellent action scenes they are. They go on for a long time too; once they\u2019re over you\u2019ll have a hard time remembering the last time the movie was relatively quiet. The rest of the film is just okay, a pretty standard \u201cbrothers in arms\u201d story with a controversial debate scene thrown in. There\u2019s some real-life argument over what the debate actually entailed, as well as whose fault it was that the mission got botched. Surely there are some people to blame, but I didn\u2019t leave the film blaming anyone. Indeed it\u2019s hard to leave \u201cLone Survivor\u201d without the utmost respect for these men who in all but one case fought for our freedom until the very end.<\/p>\n

Two and a Half Stars out of Five.<\/p>\n

\u201cLone Survivor\u201d is playing at Hershey Cocoaplex. The film is rated R for strong bloody war violence and pervasive language. Its running time is 121 minutes.<\/p>\n

Contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As good as this film is, \u201cLone Survivor\u201d is a pretty terrible title as it contains a huge spoiler. The story follows a four-man team… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}