paulclaassen The film's title along with the poster give the story away: Lone survivor - with an image of Mark Wahlberg. Talk about spoilers before you've even started watching the film!! So, from the very beginning I knew what was coming - it was simply a matter of when and how. The film got off to a very slow start. In fact, an hour into the film I was still waiting for something to happen. Anything!The film is about four guys trying to survive against all odds, but - as mentioned - the title already gave it away, so there was very little suspense and no surprises. The film delivered exactly as indicated. The tagline says 'Based on true acts of courage'. Am I missing something here? How were they being courageous? They were fighting for their lives, yes, the same anyone in their situation would have done.I realize this is based on fact and I do sympathize with those affected by the tragedy, but as a film it made for boring viewing. The action was merely guys shooting and being shot at, and falling or jumping off cliffs - again and again. I actually couldn't wait for this to end. The last few minutes were action-packed, but by that time I honestly couldn't give a damn anymore. There's so many reasons why I did not enjoy this. On a positive note, the directing was very good, and the photography was excellent. All the actors were good and believable, as well. You could literally sense their agony.

Michael Ledo There is nothing like a tear jerking war film the whole f@#$%^& family can enjoy. The film opens with a montage of Navy Seal training to demonstrate that this is an elite group. It moves quickly to a base in Afghanistan where they demonstrate the adolescent machismo and crudeness that exists within the U.S. military service, highlighted by the "poem" recited by the new guy. We also get to see other aspects of their character, their plans for the future.It isn't long before they go on a recon mission that doesn't go well, and plot spoiler, there is just a Lone Survivor (the guy they paid the most to be in the film). The film highlights the dilemma faced in the field by military personnel in modern times, that is how to deal with civilians of unknown allegiance. If you kill them you wind up on CNN and do 20 years (message: an open liberal media kills soldiers and saves the evil doers) or if you don't kill them, they will eventually kill you. Sometimes there are no right answers except when "The use of deadly force is authorized" as it was in this case. Perhaps they just said that line for effect, I don't know, but to me that would make decision making easy, especially with 20-20 hindsight.The film has plenty of blood squirts. The injured soldiers had cuts and bruises on them which seemed to appear by magic for effect, especially cuts on the top of the face. The end credits show still photos of the actual men involved in this incident with an appropriate soundtrack to make for a teary eyed moment. I think absolute silence at the end while showing the pictures may have been more effective, if not appropriate.I liked the realism of the film, showing the horrors of war and the impossible situations in which we place our troops. Clearly a training course in Farsi (or Dari) would have helped. I will mention the use of predator drones takes those difficult life and death decisions out of the field and places it on "the deciders" who can currently kill innocent people without consequence. This is a good thing for the foot soldiers (or Seals in this case) but speaks volumes of debate about the state of humanity, international law, etc. etc.A war film worthy for patriots.Parental Guide: No sex or nudity. Excessive F-bombs.

dardsweglord The movie starts very promising. You get to know the team and what kind of mission they are facing, but the fact that almost the entire movie got spoiled in the movie title "Lone Survivor" is just sad. The title fits, but it ruins the whole movie. When for example the Apache escort gunships came, you knew something really bad was going to happen so that the two Navy Seals couldn't go home. The title also spoiled that the main character was going to be the only survivor of the four Seals that were sent on the mission.Making a 2-hour movie out of a non-fiction book, while trying to build characters, is tricky. In this case, I believe too much time was spent up front creating the characters, while too little focus was given to the ending."Lone Survivor" does not disappoint in its depiction of a group of Navy Seals who fight off scores of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Confronted at the beginning of their mission with the dilemma of letting three goatherds go and risking the compromising of their mission or killing them - they let them go. The subsequent loss of all of the four Seals but one, Marcus Lutrell, and the killing of 16 of their comrades in a helicopter crash trying to rescue themOverall, I think the movie was still a good movie and it had its good and bad moments but movies aren't always perfect.

undeaddt The movie producer could've not chosen a better cast than this one. Every single one of the actors does his best and even goes beyond that to make this movie great, the acting is truly exceptional. Maybe the whole scenario was a bit blank, but it is based on a real event, so no hard feelings there. The gore and brutality that was shown and is actually really happening in those kind of situations brought a deep sense and emotion to the movie, altho some of the scenes went beyond realistic and were to much from me, like the constant falling of the cliffs without dying.