Lone Survivor shows a side of war rarely seen in films. It is gritty and harsh. However, Lone Survivor falls short of giving a completely clear picture of what it is really like to be in war.

The movie is based on a true story about the failed Operation Red Wings. A group of four Navy SEALs, including main character Marcus Luttrell, played by Mark Wahlberg, sets off to find and kill a top Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah.

While watching the village Shah was last seen in, the SEALs are discovered by villagers. The soldiers face a difficult decision whether to let go, tie up or kill the villagers who saw them. There is a discovery of a radio on the elder villager, which makes the decision more complicated because the SEALs assume it would be used to contact the Taliban in the village.

This scene was one of the most powerful in the movie and easily could have been longer. The decision was hard for the SEALs; every SEAL put their two cents in and added challenging points. However, with children there, the SEALs agreed they could not bring themselves to kill, no matter how many soldiers Shah killed.

The release of the villagers is the beginning of the end for the four SEALs. As they try to re-establish radio contact for extraction, the Taliban attacks.

The firefights in Lone Survivor are brutal and realistic. In many action movies the audience awaits gunshots and the enjoyable action that follows. Lone Survivor manages to do the opposite; the audience dreads the next gunshot, savoring the silence which follows each battle.  

The injuries sustained by SEALs during the movie are incredibly graphic and the camera does not quickly cut away to spare the audience from a gruesome scene. One scene focuses on the removal of a large piece of shrapnel and nothing is spared. 

Lone Survivor trades glorifying war for glorifying soldiers. The beginning centers on the camaraderie and friendship between the SEALs, which really humanizes them. The SEALs who are married discuss their wives’ birthdays and paint colors for their houses, while the newest recruit tries hard to fit in with the older soldiers.

Each solider has a well fleshed out life and personality. However, when they die, there is no real focus on who they are as a human, just what they did for the other SEALs and for the mission. They are seen more as heroic martyrs than as the people they were.

At the end of the movie, the real soldiers are shown and it turns out that the actors all look very close to who they play, which adds to the emotional impact the movie has. None of the characters are given true flaws in the short time the audience learns about them. I think it is possibly a show of respect to the soldiers the actors played, but it also leads to less human depictions of them.

Lone Survivor clocks in at nearly two and a half hours, but does not feel nearly that long with its brisk pacing. The acting is well done, but Wahlberg came across as the weakest actor. 

Lone Survivor does a great job at being unpartisan about the subject matter. However, while there’s no huge focus on promoting war or demonizing the people they fought against, the movie does try to make the Taliban look a little too evil instead of looking like real people and villagers from the area.

Lone Survivor takes a realistic look at war and what soldiers go through. Though it stays neutral and just tells the story, some aspects could have been fleshed out more or done better. Lone Survivor is a great war movie that keeps realism in mind throughout the film.