|
 The film, which opens in limited theaters in the United
States on Christmas Day and wider release on January 10, 2014,
is based on the best-selling book by Marcus Luttrell, the only
man who lived to recount what happened during the covert June
2005 Operation Red Wings in which 11 SEALs and eight soldiers
died.
Two-time Oscar nominee Mark Wahlberg plays Luttrell, a medic and
a sharpshooter who was one of a four-man team dropped by
helicopter in the rugged mountains near Afghanistan's border
with Pakistan on a mission to find a Taliban leader.
The operation was compromised when three Afghan goat herders
stumbled upon them, leaving the men with a moral dilemma that
would lead to the deaths of their unarmed captives or their own.
"The dominant experience for me was the brotherhood that existed
between these four men — the tragedy of their loss," said Berg,
the director of 2012's action-adventure film "Battleship."
Not long after releasing their Afghan captives and scampering
further up the mountain hoping to be rescued, the SEALs are
outnumbered by Taliban on three sides. They are forced into a
firefight and to hurl themselves off steep cliffs, tumbling like
rag dolls, slamming against boulders and trees, shattering limbs
as bullets and rocket-propelled grenades whizzed by.
"We fought them for hours and hours until we ran out of bullets
and we ran out of blood," said Luttrell, who despite wounds and
a broken back, crawled for miles and was saved by the kindness
of an Afghan villager.
BATTLE SCENES
Berg, 51, holds nothing back in the intense, brutal battle
scenes, depicting war in all its gruesome detail. A helicopter,
carrying eight more SEALs and eight soldiers, sent to rescue
Luttrell and his team is blasted out of the sky, killing all on
board.
Comradery, war and bravery are recurring themes for Berg, an
actor, writer and producer, who also directed the 2007 action
thriller "The Kingdom."
"I consistently find myself attracted to the psychology of
violence and people who are willing to put themselves in this
kind of situation," said Berg, who spent time embedded with a
SEAL team before adapting Luttrell's book for the screen.
[to top of second column] |
 The film from Universal Studios, a unit of Comcast
Corp garnered some positive early reviews, although, as The
Hollywood Reporter film critic Todd McCarthy noted, the tough
subject matter may limit its box office success.
"The film is rugged, skilled, relentless, determined, narrow-minded
and focused, everything that a soldier must be when his life is on
the line," McCarthy wrote in his review.
Joining Wahlberg is Taylor Kitsch ("Savages") as Michael Murphy, the
on-ground team officer who was posthumously awarded the Medal of
Honor for his efforts to save his men.
Emile Hirsch ("Into the Wild") portrays Danny Dietz,
the team's communications officer, while Ben Foster ("3:10 to Yuma")
is sonar technician Matthew "Axe" Axelson and Eric Bana ("Star
Trek") is Erik Kristensen, the commander of the operation.
Luttrell, now 38 and retired in Texas, and other SEALs were on the
set when the film was shot in New Mexico, helping Berg and the
actors portray what happened as accurately as possible.
Wahlberg, 42, admitted being nervous about playing Luttrell and
about the scrutiny the film would receive from the families of the
men who died, the SEAL community and the military as a whole. But he
felt the film needed to be made.
"I saw the importance of it as being bigger than my fears and
insecurities," Wahlberg said in an interview. "I just thought I
needed to be a part of it and needed to get the story told."
Wahlberg dismissed any suggestion that "Lone Survivor" is a
machismo, gung-ho war film and he said he wanted audiences to have
"a stronger appreciation for what those guys do. This is by no means
a pro-war movie."
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant
McCool)
[© 2013 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2013 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
