On Friday night, I joined a group of my friends and co-workers to watch a screening of “Lone Survivor“.  The film is a dramatization of the book of the same name by Marcus Lattrell and Patrick Robinson.  It is one of the better war movies I’ve ever seen, and the way that it deals with real heroes and how they faced duty, life, and death makes it one of the best movies I’ve seen in the past few years.

Plot Summary  (Spoiler Alert)

The story of this movie is familiar to a lot of people, and it’s not a very happy one.  In a nutshell, the movie retells how a four-man group of Navy SEALs was sent on a reconnaissance mission to ascertain the location of a Taliban leader.  After finding their target and moving to a hide site to await extraction, a goat-herd and two boys stumble onto them.  After deciding that killing the civilians was not their best option, they are set free and the SEALS head for the hills.  Inevitably, they are hunted down by Taliban forces, and a running gun battle ensues.  One of the SEALs, Lattrell, makes it out alive, but not unscathed.

The primary roles of this film are the four SEALs on the doomed patrol, Hospital Corpsman Second Class Marcus Lattrell, Lieutenant Michael Murphy, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the battle, Petty Officer Second Class Danny Dietz, and Petty Officer Second Class Matt Axelson, played by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emil Hersch, and Ben Foster, respectively.  All of the actors did an excellent job fitting into their roles, and I can’t find fault in any of their performances.

While some of the dialogue seemed a bit contrived at times, I didn’t have a hard time believing that the words  coming out of the actors’ mouthes were what the people on the ground actually said.  Yes, things were Hollywood’ed up a bit, and parts of the story were modified slightly to fit it into a movie, but it’s not egregious.

The movie moves very quickly.  While there are quiet moments, both before and after the fighting starts, they do not break up the pace of the movie.  The movie clocks in at 121 minutes, but I did not feel that it was stretched or cut off at all.

The movie is rated R, and I suggest that parents watch it before taking their teenagers for a viewing.  The movie makers didn’t pull any punches on the effects that bullets, shrapnel, and high explosives have on the human body.  It’s not done for shock value; it just is what it is.  Where it is appropriate to show blood and gruesome wounds, they are shown, but not in a manner which goes over the top.

I give this movie an A, and I believe that everyone who can see it, should see it.  It’s important that we know the story of what happens when we send young men and women into harm’s way.  If you’ve seen and gotten anything out of “Blackhawk Down” or “Saving Private Ryan“, you’ll have a similar experience here.