Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor is apparently the passion project that Peter Berg directed Battleship for, and his enthusiasm for the material is evident in every frame. The film opens with real-life footage of the US Navy SEALs that Berg clearly idolises, before proceeding to tell the story of the disastrous Operation Red Wings in bloody detail.

Berg’s film is built around an extended firefight between four SEALs (Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster) and dozens of Taliban insurgents, which is expertly staged but the relentless intensity quickly grows numbing. Enemy fighters go down with one shot while the Americans take countless bullets before finally breathing their last in admiring slow-motion.

It all leaves you ample time to wonder what exactly Berg is trying to say – war is hell and SEALs are hard? Is that really it? There is an interesting late twist when a group of Afghan villagers present us with a different brand of heroism, but many viewers will have been turned off by Berg’s military fetishism long before that point. [Philip Concannon]