Lone Survivor

As it is half-term we take the opportunity to get to the cinema as much as possible so following Robocop we decided to watch Lone Survivor. This film is based around the failed US SEAL mission Operation Red Wings, where a four-man SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team was tasked to track Taliban leader Ahmad Shah but ended up surrounded by the Taliban and out of comms with their base.

It is a very powerful movie, at times extremely violent and certainly very moving. Some reviewers have said it lacks character development and one described it as "war porn" but that is certainly not the case. The SEALs are not some faceless grunts, no time is wasted in establishing that they are all friends and that they have families they miss back home, I'm not sure what any more "character development" would add, you are certainly moved by the deaths of characters when it happens and in a poignant photo montage at the end. The action is intense and does go on for some time but calling it "war porn" misses the point that the film is showing just what these men went through - it is unrelenting, it is violent, it is shocking, but it is realistic.

Overall, the film tells a story in a powerful way, it is neither a pro or anti-war film, it "just" is a war film but one well worth seeing at the cinema...