Review of Lone Survivor (2013) by Spangle — 15 Jun 2015

Lone Survivor is, well, a war film. It may be based on a true story, but it really does not re-invent the wheel in any way and operates as many war films before it have operated. It is never truly profound and the action becomes numbing after a certain point.

Luckily, the action and fighting scenes (i.e. the whole thing) are quite exciting and make for some great entertainment. They can be quite gory and graphic, which is a turn off for me, even though this is a war film.

I am not a huge fan of gore and this one is a prime example of why. Really, the sequence that saved this film was the last half hour. Typically, Arabs in these types of films are portrayed as being vile, lifeless, soulless monsters.

This one does not do that and instead shows that, yes, there are real human beings with feelings out there too. Shockingly, this is not that common in American propaganda films such as this. Overall, decent propaganda and a decent film that gets saved by not going entirely racist.

Odd world we live in.