Synopsis
Four Navy SEALs on a covert mission to neutralize a high-level Taliban operative must make an impossible moral decision in the mountains of Afghanistan that leads them into an enemy ambush. As they confront unthinkable odds, the SEALs must find reserves of strength and resilience to fight to the finish.
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Cast
- Mark WahlbergPetty Officer First Class Marcus Luttrell
- Taylor KitschLieutenant Michael "Mike" Murphy
- Emile HirschPetty Officer Second Class Danny Dietz
- Ben FosterPetty Officer Second Class Matthew "Axe" Axelson
- Eric BanaLieutenant Commander Erik Kristensen
- Ali SulimanMohammad Gulab
- Alexander LudwigPetty Officer Second Class Shane Patton
- Jerry FerraraHasslert
- Scott ElrodQRF SEAL
- Josh BerryCommunication SEAL
Recommendations
- 75
The Playlist
Together, all four cast members help draw a line across the narrative—separating when we were watching a mildly engaging depiction of names, dates, and locations, and a hellish, immersive situation with no easy outcome in sight. - 70
Variety
Berg’s blunt, pummeling style offers few nuances and makes no apologies, but his broad brushstrokes have clearly found an ideal canvas in this grimly heroic rendering of hell on earth. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
The film is rugged, skilled, relentless, determined, narrow-minded and focused, everything that a soldier must be when his life is on the line. - 67
The A.V. Club
For all his directorial shortcomings, Berg has a knack for capturing men at work; his depiction of special-ops maneuvering—of silently casing the enemy base, of planning the attack—is as compelling as the chaotic violence he orchestrates later. - 63
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
The characters are only superficially sketched in, but we still fear for them, understand their code and above all else, appreciate the dirty, bloody, high-risk work these professionals do. That they go through all this and risk everything, by choice, is something Berg, to his credit, never lets us forget. - 50
New York Post
There hasn’t been this bizarre mixture of hooah and death since John Wayne hung up his combat boots. - 50
The Dissolve
The simplicity of Lone Survivor eventually becomes a handicap, because after a certain point, the film becomes just one long battle sequence, lacking narrative ebb and flow. - 50
IndieWire
Lone Survivor is a grotesque action movie at times impressively directed by Peter Berg that combines the brute masculinity with the ugliness of the battlefield and viscerally unsettling shock value. But it's less a depiction of courage than a brutish magnification of anger and pain, both of which it conveys a lot better than the high ground that it reaches for.
