Lone Survivor

‘Crack.’ ‘Splatter.’ ‘Shriek!’ ‘Splurge.’

Lone Survivor (2013) is one of the most brutal, blood-splattered war movies ever committed to celluloid. During the course of this gruelling film, hundreds of people are brutally shot, stabbed and bludgeoned to death in graphic, documentary detail. And yet, by the end of a juddering 121 minutes, perhaps the greatest casualty is any sense of realistic characterisation.

The plot

Based on real events, the film tells the story of a bungled operation to kill a high-level Taliban leader in Afghanistan. A small reconnaissance team is sent to discretely locate the target. But after being discovered, they quickly find themselves surrounded by the local militia.

Unable to summon help, the soldiers are forced into a desperate battle to both save their lives and come across as three-dimensional characters. (Given this is a Peter Berg film, it’s probably not giving too much away to say that the odds for either of these aren’t too promising.)

Who the hell’s in this?

Funky bunch rapper, hamburger entrepreneur and occasional actor Mark Wahlberg plays Marcus Luttrell – the titular character. Naturally, everyone else in the cast is expendable cannon fodder. (The clue’s kind of in the title.)

Making up the rest of Wahlberg’s condemned team are Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch and Taylor Kitsch – an actor whose vacant, surfer dude persona and wooden acting are reminiscent of a younger, slightly less convincing, Keanu Reeves. When they’re hiding out in a forest at one point, it’s actually hard to spot Kitsch among all those other prime hunks of timber.

Further target practice for the Taliban is provided by perennial movie corpse, Eric Bana. Having met a sticky-end in Star Trek, Troy, The Time Traveller’s Wife, and Hanna, Eric’s not really the guy you’d want to see leading your rescue mission.

And sure enough, as soon as everyone’s least favourite Hulk tries to save Wahlberg, he gets an RPG straight up his jacksy. Only Sean Bean has a ‘death reel’ to rival the Aussie lunk.

The good

While Berg has little interest in narrative niceties such as plot and character development, he is at least keen to depict war in all its visceral hell. This lack of squeamishness results in some of most intense combat scenes Exploding Helicopter has ever encountered – filled with pulse-pounding tension, fear, and confusion.

Mark Wahlberg and his doomed co-stars

There’s an almost giddy portrayal of realistic, close-quarters violence. Forget those films where characters heroically dismiss injuries as ‘flesh wounds’ before bounding-off to perform Herculean feats of bravery. Here, war really hurts.

Outnumbered and outgunned, our heroes are not so much injured as gradually mutilated by the punishing array of guns, rockets and grenades ranged against them. Bones break, limbs are shot-off, and blood pumps furiously from gaping wounds. An episode of Casualty, this is not.

The most powerful scene in the film sees the surviving soldiers try to escape their pursuers by throwing themselves down a steep cliff. As they hurtle uncontrollably down the slope, the sound and camerawork makes you feel like you’re experiencing every impact as they smash into trees, rocks and boulders. By the time they get to the bottom, it feels like you’ve careened down the cliff yourself.

The bad 

While Peter Berg’s sledgehammer approach to film-making brings vitality to the combat scenes, it poses big problems whenever the actors have to do some of that old-fashioned ‘acting’ stuff that used to be so popular.

The film has barely begun before our heroes, in a series of entirely unnatural conversations, unload a heavy barrage of character exposition. They shell the viewer with unnecessary stories about how much they love their families, and engage in much strained bros-in-arms joshing.

It’s all utterly unconvincing: the scenes are simply there to establish each character as action movie stereotype A, B or C. So by the time Taylor Kitsch starts yakking away about his upcoming marriage, he may as well hold up a sign saying: ‘Dead by the end of the second act’.

(It’s a well-known staple of these movies that no character ever mentions impending nuptials, or even looks fondly on a pic of a ‘special gal back home’, without getting solidly murdered to death within the hour.)

Eric Bana: world's worst rescue team leader

Notably absent from all this emotional elucidation is Mark Wahlberg. As anyone familiar with war films knows: the man with the least to live for is the guy who gets to go home. So when the Wahlburger tells us that all he wants to do on getting back to the States is chop down the tree in his garden we can be sure he’ll make it to the end credits.

(And in fairness, standing next to a big lump of wood will probably remind him of all those good times with Taylor Kitsch.)

Such character problems were readily apparent in Berg’s previous film Battleship, a movie exclusively populated by cardboard cut-outs – including a mono-featured Rhianna, who has arguably shown more expressionistic range in those innumerable tweeted photos of her own arse.

So flimsy was the characterisation that the actors wore t-shirts with ‘Navy’ and ‘Army’, as if that was the most interesting thing about them. Often, it was.

The unwatchable

Fatally, Lone Survivor includes a credit that has marked the death knell for many a movie: ‘Made with the full cooperation of the US Army’. Inevitably, this translates into unending scenes of flag-waving, tub-thumping jingoism.

The film’s opening is little more than a glorified recruitment video for the US armed forces where soldiers are lectured on the values that make them men: honour, loyalty and comradeship. Hu-ah!

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the whole thing is rounded off with a lachrymose cover version of David Bowie’s Heroes. At some points, the whole thing veers dangerously close to Team America’s ‘Fuck, yeah!’ territory. Hail to the chief, indeed. Now, will someone pass the sick bag?

The chinnock gets an RPG up the jacksy

Exploding helicopter action

So, to our favourite casualty of war. This occurs when a big Chinnock helicopter is scrambled for a rescue mission. There’s a strong hint that the big whirlybird could be doomed as soon as we see the ill-omened Eric Bana climb on-board. (Possibly only Dracula has spent more time dead onscreen than the accident-prone Antipodean.)

It flies out to the mountain where Wahlberg and his team are trapped by the Taliban. But before reinforcements can be dropped off, one of the Afghans fires an RPG.

The missile flies straight inside the back of the whirlybird via the open loading ramp. Soldiers dodge out of the way as the rocket flies down the centre of cargo hold.

Hitting the cockpit, it ka-booms and completely severs the front half of the chopper. The dismembered helicopter falls to the ground and explodes. Ho, hum. Eric Bana killed in action once again.

Artistic merit

Whatever gripes viewers may have against Peter Berg, the lad knows how to stage an action sequence. This is a high quality, well-executed chopper fireball.

Exploding helicopter innovation

I loved how the missile flew down the inside of the Chinnock - an innovation we’ve never seen before.

Surprisingly, despite expiring so many times onscreen, this is the first time Eric Bana has been killed by an exploding helicopter. One suspects – and hopes – it won’t be the last.

Interesting fact

This indeed is a small world. Marcus Luttrell - on whose story this film is based - was friends with Chris ‘American Sniper’ Kyle, having served in the Navy Seals together.

Review by: Jafo

Still want more? Then you can listen to the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode on Lone Survivor. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher or listen right here....

Battleship

Who hasn’t wanted to be a soldier? Running around in the mud with a machine gun and a camouflaged, paint-smeared face. Wot larks.

If you didn‘t, then you probably wanted to be a pilot, scorching through the skies at Mach-2 while locked in a deadly aerial dogfight.

Odds are, however, you never longed to be in the Navy, meandering slowly around the world’s oceans doing, doing…..what is it they do, exactly?

Yup, there’s no hiding it: the Navy is boring.

It’s just a duller world – geared towards the complexities of fleet management, integrated modern weapon systems and sophisticated engineering mechanisms. Sorry, did you drop off for a moment there..?

When the brains behind Battleshit (and no, that’s not a typing error) came together, they no doubt swiftly realised they had a problem. How the hell do you make the dull logistics of modern Navy life thrilling to cinema’s key audience: pimply-faced teens?

Their answer, while not pretty, does have a certain base logic to it: give ‘em aliens, sex and guns. So they make the Navy repel an alien invasion, squeeze Rihanna into a booty-licious sailor outfit, and get Liam Neeson (cast here as a grizzled Admiral) to gruffly shout ‘Fire!’ a lot.

And that’s it, frankly. In the face of such brutal reductionism, nothing so flagrant as a coherent plot was ever going to make the cut. Everything here is about maintaining the attention of pubescent boys. That’s probably why – and try to keep a straight face here – the alien trouble starts when scientists try to contact another world by tweeting them. (Presumably something like: @E.T. r u aliens LOL.) See, kids, the movies are just like your life!

Rihanna: "Bring me a baby panda to cuddle NOW!"

Incredibly, this genius idea backfires. (Maybe one of the scientists got drunk and sent a snapchat pic of their knob.) Whatever, the cousins from outer space send their reply in the form of five heavily-armed attack ships, rather than an amusing video of a cat repeatedly falling off a sofa.

As intergalactic conflict breaks out, Hopper, the buff hero, flexes his pecs and starts saving the day. It’s never explained why a work-shy pussy-hound is in the Navy, where slacking-off and fraternising with women are court martial offences, but that’s the least of this film’s inconsistency worries.

Oh, yes. Very soon, a much bigger question looms: does this day actually need saving? Weirdly for an alien invasion movie, these evil spacemen don’t actually seem too bothered about global conquest. For long stretches, they do na-da. Like intergalactic pikies, they just shuffle up, make a big mess of the ocean, then loaf around doing nothing.

This boring stalemate continues for ages, leaving the audience in the awkward position of having to watch actors hired for how buff they look actually trying to speak. (Neeson, the sole capable thesp, looks pig miserable in these scenes.)

It’s snore-worthy fare, though Exploding Helicopter was impressed by how they got Rihanna to stay in front of a camera for two consecutive minutes without baring her arse.

On and on it goes, like a leaky old boat taking on water. And by the time an old WWII battleship performs a handbrake turn (The Fast and the Funnelled, anyone?), everyone’s too weary to point out that ships don’t really do that.

Neeson watches his own soul die as he delivers
another deathless line of dialogue

And yet, just as the eyelids start to close, Battleshit comes up with chopper fireball action aplenty.

In a honking great blockbuster like this, one exploding helicopter was never going to be enough for the film’s conflagration-hungry teen audience. Instead we're treated to a record breaking eight helicopters being blown to smithereens in one short orgy of rotor-bladed mayhem.

It begins peacefully enough, with the octuplet of helicopters parked innocently at their base posing no threat to anybody. Nevertheless the aliens head straight for them, providing a visual treat as the weird spherical spaceship devices barrel through the parked whirlybirds.

At times like this, one bemoans the lack of a collective noun for exploding helicopters. If a murder of crows or a conspiracy of lemurs, then why not a con-flame-gration of choppers? Hey, it could catch on.

Suffice to say, the eight vehicles explode spectacularly.

Artistic merit

There’s much to be said for exploding helicopter scenes that are unnecessary and gratuitous – and this one is the very apogee of needlessness.

The helicopters here aren't strategically important, they're not fitted with secret anti-alien devices. There's no reason to think they pose any kind of danger.

This palpable lack of threat lends the scene an aesthetic purity. It suggests exploding helicopters are an elemental property of film, above the mere petty demands of plot or logic – a phenomenon to be appreciated on its own terms and in reference only to itself. Which is to be applauded, of course.

Number of exploding helicopters

A historic and record breaking 8.

Exploding helicopter innovation

The destruction of helicopters by aliens in this kind of actiony, sci-fi movie has become a yawn-inducing commonplace. (See Independence Day or Battle: Los Angeles for just two examples).

Given the choppers always get absolutely pummelled – and that such a contest is the aerodynamic equivalent of Macaulay Culkin vs Vinnie Jones with a nailed club – it’s actually refreshing to see the lumbering helicopters not even make it off the ground. And more realistic.

Positives

Watching Rihanna trying to act never gets old. Even mid-line, she looks about ready to throw an insta-strop and demand one of her ‘people’ bring her a truffle smoothie and baby panda to cuddle NOW.

Throughout Battleshit, many of the cast wear t-shirts saying ARMY or NAVY, presumably so she can tell the difference. (In earlier cuts, rumour has it the invaders also had to wear ALIEN t-shirts for the same reason.)

Negatives

Almost everything. In particular, there’s a depressing certainty of knowing that, at some point, someone will have to drop the famous tag-line. So when Liam Neeson, of all people, finally says ‘You sunk my battleship!’ you can almost see his soul die a little inside.

(Fair enough: the film’s pay check probably bought the big man a swanky Malibu beach house. But if so, you can bet every time he sits out on the deck and suddenly remembers how he paid for it all, that iced cocktail will curdle in his mouth.)

Interesting fact

The most famous review of this lumbering, over-long mess was a model of economy from which the film could have learned much.

It was, simply: ‘Miss’.

Review by: Donny Pebbles

Still want more? Check out the Exploding Helicopter podcast on Battleship. Listen to the show on iTunes, Podomatic, YourListen, Stitcher, or Acast.