This became the unexpected smash of the weekend box office, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s got all the hallmarks of a red-state hit: no nuance, based on a true story (although I doubt all the characterizations are exactly right…more on that later), and relentless scenes of “acceptable” brutality. [Acceptable brutality means either Jesus is getting tortured, bad guys are getting tortured, or soldiers are enduring hell before blowing the bad guys away.]
What Works: Ben Foster gives one of his least mannered performances, and Mark Wahlberg could now play the ultra-competent action hero in his sleep, but he still finds a way to make a limited role feel interesting. The rocky hillside battle sequences are different than what we usually see in war movies (either the deserts of Iraq, the lush jungles of Vietnam, or the crumbling cities of WWII), and we feel the disorientation that the soldiers must have as they struck a balance between not getting shot and trying not to fall to their deaths down a steep mountain.
What Doesn’t: I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that only one of these soldiers survives (note the title), and especially not since the real-life guy has become something of a mini-celebrity while promoting this movie (and the book it’s based off of), and he even has a cameo in the film. Yet I kept wondering if his retelling was exactly accurate since Wahlberg’s character typically looks like the most heroic. In fact, he actually makes a crucial mistake early in the operation but the film presents it as a stirring example of his conscience and morality…even though it undoubtedly gets most of his team killed. A better film might have examined how doing the right thing can sometimes lead to disastrously wrong consequences, but not this one…it’s just not really that curious about anything.
I also wasn’t crazy about casting Emile Hirsch and Taylor Kitsch as two out of the four soldiers since it’s very hard to tell these two apart. And the film’s brutality may be accurate to the mission, but aren’t there 1000 Afghanistan stories just like this? Maybe even some with some nuance or depth or anything besides just “some crazy shit happened and some soldiers died, but one guy survived through random luck and now wants everybody to know about it.” Maybe the book brought up more questions than just “How do I dodge this bullet?” but the movie doesn’t.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Probably made this review a little more positive so I don’t get a bunch of crazy military-fetishists to write nasty things in the comments.