Lone Survivor
The following is a review of movie starring Mark Wahlberg.
So last night I saw the upcoming movie, “Lone Survivor”
which comes out January 10th, 2014. (Advanced Screenings: Just one
of the perks of being a college student. The movie stars Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter, Ted, The Other Guys, Pain &
Gain, and Max Payne) as Navy Seal
Marcus Lutrell and follows him and his team, Seal Team 10, through the events
of the failed Operation: Red Wings.
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| I'm still waiting for a Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch reunion, but that's just me. |
As the title suggests, there is only one survivor from this
mission that took place on June 28, 2005 in the Afghanistan Province of Kunar. The
“Lone Survivor”, Lutrell, documented his experience of the event in the 2007
book of the same name.
I’ll be honest; I went into this movie with
low-expectations. I expected this to be a real throwaway. The trailer that I
saw didn’t make me really compelled to see it, and truthfully had it not been a
free advanced screening; I probably wouldn’t have seen it on my own free will.
Well let me be the first to say that the trailer for this
movie does it ZERO justice. This was a GREAT movie. There were so many parts of this movie that I
just really enjoyed.
First off all, I liked the way they delivered the story. The
film didn’t expose these guys as war heroes or anything of that nature. The soldiers were portrayed as just plain old
American guys, not super-human freaks void of emotion. They cracked stupid
jokes and talked about dumb stuff like typical 20 something year old guys would
do. They were relatable. This is not to
say that I expect American soldiers to be these robotic killing machines, it
was just a pleasant surprise that they weren’t portrayed as such, which they
usually are in film.
In the interest of not spoiling the entire movie, I don’t
want to go into detail about who dies when or how. But perhaps one of the best
aspects of this movie is how when these men die, the audience is completely
heart-wrenched by their deaths, despite having only known them for half an hour
or so. Not to mention that you already know they die because the movie is named
LONE SURVIVOR. It doesn’t make their deaths any less emotional. Fantastic
storytelling; really well done. Perhaps one of the most real parts of this
movie is how they don’t make their deaths these over-glorified hero’s deaths.
These men are at the worst of the worst when they die. They die heroically, but
it’s a sad, painful, and tragic death.
There is one soldier who dies in dramatic fashion, but that’s because he
ACTUALLY died in dramatic, sacrificial fashion.
Another thing I thought was really postivie about this movie
was how they didn’t make ALL middle-easterners these evil bad guys. Perhaps one
of the most emotional parts of the movie is when Lutrell is given help and
sheltered from the Taliban in a small Afghan village. If anything, this third act
of the movie is even more emotionally moving than the first two.
So at this point, I’m already really sad. I’m an emotional
wreck, and the tears are ready to run. I thought I was in the clear when the
movie was over, but then just before the credits started rolling, they ran a
slideshow of the 19 men who lost their lives in Operation Red Wings.
It was full of wedding photos and
pictures of them with their kids. That’s when the tears started flowing. It was
emotional. Like REALLY emotional. If you don’t leave the theater feeling really
moved, you should be clinically evaluated for emotional disorders.
So long story short, please see this movie. I really loved
it. I thought it was really well done and is another great performance from
Wahlberg. Don’t be fooled by the lousy trailers for the movie. It is incredibly
well done and definitely a must see.
This is the part where I’d ask you to leave your Purple
Opinions about the film in the comment section, but seeing as the movie doesn’t
come out for another 2 months, I guess you really can’t do that.
Well.
ANYWAYS…Don’t forget about the NEW season of Purple Opinions
that premieres on November 29th, 2013! Stay tuned!
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