Lone Survivor (2013)

Marcus Luttrell and his team set out on a mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, in late June 2005. Marcus and his team are left to fight for their lives in one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare.

Director:

Peter Berg

Writers:

Peter Berg, Marcus Luttrell (book),

Stars:

Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 5 wins & 14 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mark Wahlberg	...	Marcus Luttrell
Taylor Kitsch	...	Michael Murphy
Emile Hirsch	...	Danny Dietz
Ben Foster	...	Matt 'Axe' Axelson
Yousuf Azami	...	Shah
Ali Suliman	...	Gulab
Eric Bana	...	Erik Kristensen
Alexander Ludwig	...	Shane Patton
Rich Ting	...	James Suh
Dan Bilzerian	...	Healy
Jerry Ferrara	...	Hasslert
Rick Vargas	...	Crew Chief
Scott Elrod	...	QRF SEAL
Gregory Rockwood	...	Chinook Pilot #1
Ryan Kay	...	Chinook Pilot #2

Storyline

Marcus Luttrell, a Navy Seal, and his team set out on a mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, in late June 2005. After running into mountain herders and capturing them, they were left with no choice but to follow their rules of engagement or be imprisoned. Now Marcus and his team are left to fight for their lives in one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare.

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Plot Keywords:

navy seal | commando unit | fight | taliban | mission | 

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Taglines:

Live to Tell the Story

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Genres:

Action | Biography | Drama | Thriller | War

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Certificate:

14A

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan] Universal [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English Pushto

Release Date:

10 January 2014 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Le seul survivant

Filming Locations:

New Mexico, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$40,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$84,857 (USA) (3 January 2014)

Gross:

$125,069,696 (USA) (4 April 2014)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Emmett/Furla Films, Closest to the Hole Productions, Envision Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

121 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Datasat SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Peter Berg had planned to make this film before Battleship (2012), but Universal Pictures wanted him to reverse the priorities, and he relented.

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Goofs

Several times during the gunfight, we see Murphy and Dietz's M4s, which are unsilenced, make the noise of Axelson and Luttrell's Mk. 12s which are silenced. Also, the silenced Mk. 12s sometimes make the loud firing sound of the M4s.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Seal Instructor: [pulling exhausted trainee from the water] Six times three?
Seal Trainee: [groans]
Seal Instructor: Hurry up, Hurry up, Hurry up... Hurry up.
Seal Trainee: Eighteen.
Seal Instructor: Ooh!

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Connections

Referenced in Midnight Screenings: Lone Survivor/Her (2014)

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Soundtracks

Aerials
Written by Christoffer Franzén
Performed by Lights & Motion
Courtesy of Deep Elm

User Reviews

A realistic high quality action flick with a lack of depth

Holy sh*t......

You get so many action movies nowadays following familiar formulas that when you watch one of them you know that just when the good guy is about to get overcome by the enemy, the backup arrives and helps him. The formula desensitizes you.

But when a movie is based on a real story, the good guys sometimes do not come. They do not come in an hour; they do not come in a day; and if they come, they are not invincible. Real problems do not follow formulas. Real life is sobering in its beauty and its horror.

Lone Survivor does not have a very original or interesting premise for an action movie. A squad of US navy SEALs is dispatched on an assassination mission. Things do not go as planned.

However, the quality of the cinematography, solid acting and good action is what makes this such a great film.

Out of all the actors getting to play a part not one is bad. Not one fakes it. It feels that everyone is trying to do their best.

The film is also gorgeous. It didn't have to be. It is. The Afghanistan these guys are in is fake because the entire movie was shot in the United States, but it looks authentic and breathtaking.

The action is raw and graphic. Not in a guts-on-the-floor kind of way, but falling-down-a-cliff-side kind of way. Again, you can feel that the people have tried to do a good job. You know how just much they tried? Broken ribs and punctured lungs were involved in the making of this movie.

If there is one problem I have with the film is that it has a self-imposing limit to how big or interesting it can be. It is a story about one military operation and nothing else. No background stories for the characters, no side events, and barely any relationship development. I remember as a kid I was really fascinated by the military ops and wrote a story, as good as I could, about an imaginary mission. Even as I was writing it, I realised that it can never be truly interesting to read because the range of the story is too small. And this film is like that. What's worse, the title of this film gives away the ending. It is basically a giant spoiler.

But it is a testament to the movie's quality that, even though the movie gives almost no background information to the characters, it still managed to really make me care about them. Even with weights on its legs, the film still manages to make such an interesting run.