Tag Archives: Alexander Ludwig

Movie Review ~ Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant

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The Facts:

Synopsis: During the war in Afghanistan, a local interpreter risks his own life to carry an injured sergeant across miles of grueling terrain
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Salim, Antony Starr, Alexander Ludwig, Bobby Schofield, Emily Beecham, Jonny Lee Miller
Director: Guy Ritchie
Rated: R
Running Length: 123 minutes
TMMM Score: (6.5/10)
Review: From the beginning, director Guy Ritchie has brought a style to his films that make them, if not instantly recognizable, at least easy enough to place on the same shelf.  All of the movies the British-born filmmaker has under his belt have a swagger, even the duds like Swept Away and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and the odd choices like his helming of a live-action adaptation of Disney’s musical Aladdin.  It’s in movies I find exemplary in style, like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Wrath of Man, where he is at the peak of his game – yet these are the titles that audiences didn’t fully show up for.  It boggles my mind.  And it appears to send Ritchie off in other directions looking for his next projects instead of following his instincts and staying the course.

Already in 2023, Ritchie has been represented in the blink-and-you-missed-it espionage comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, and he’s following it up a little over a month later with The Covenant.  Whoops, sorry.  Make that Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant.  I’m unsure what makes the film unique enough for the director to put his name before the title.  Considering it was initially set to be called The Interpreter, and both titles are so cookie-cutter, I suppose throwing in Ritchie’s name at least helps it stand out from the crowd somehow. 

Watching the film is like riding on a rocky road in a Jeep constantly shifting gears.  There’s always forward momentum (it’s a Guy Ritchie film, after all), but it can be a herky-jerky trip from the beginning to the end.  Opening with the most tremendous data dump of names since The New Mickey Mouse Club, we’re introduced to U.S. Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal, Prisoners) and his platoon of men during the War in Afghanistan.  They all have nicknames, and in their fatigues, they all look alike, so good luck remembering who any of them are at the start.  It’s one thing for a war film to begin amid chaos, that is expected, but it’s another to just kick a viewer into a world with so little context as to the what, where, and why of it all.

In this first stretch, the film struggles to find an identity that differentiates it from other jarhead films.  During this time, we watch the all-business Kinley take on a new interpreter, Ahmed (Dar Salim, Exodus: Gods and Kings), and see how Ahmed’s experience on the fringe of Afghan society and skirting close to the Taliban makes him a great asset to the American troops.  Kinley doesn’t feel that benefit at first, and the mistrusting walls he has built up don’t come down quickly.  As the platoon embarks on a specialized mission that could be a significant victory for the US, they are ambushed, leaving Ahmed and an injured Kinley to evade the Taliban in a suspenseful journey across miles of treacherous country. 

After a rough 20 minutes in the beginning, Ritchie’s film is kickstarted by a genuinely nail-biting sequence that sets the second act into motion.  In this middle passage, we see the mature director Ritchie has become over the years.  Following Ahmed’s harrowing trek to bring Kinley home becomes grueling but for all the right reasons.  In what could be a breakthrough role, Danish actor Salim handily steals the movie dramatically from Gyllenhaal (who chews a little too hard on the scenery for most of the film) and makes for a believable action star.  I hope Hollywood takes note and thinks outside the box when casting him in the future.

I’m purposefully leaving out a big part of the film in the last 45 minutes because I think it’s a tad bit of a spoiler.  Previews and some marketing may have let that cat out of the bag, but in case they haven’t, I’ll let you find out what happens after Ahmed and Kinley traverse the hunters the Taliban sent out looking for them.  It’s the weaker portion of the film because it adds so many other factors to the mix, like unsteady performances (and accents) from Jonny Lee Miller as Kinley’s commanding officer and Antony Starr as a soldier-for-hire Kinley teams up with.  I’m not sure I fully understood the point of Alexander Ludwig’s character or whether he was a full friend or slight frenemy to Kinley.  With Ludwig and the rest of the opening platoon, the film trades heavily with the type of juvenile banter you often expect to end with “No Homo” but thankfully stops short of that here.  I’m not sure if it’s deliberately present in the script from Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, and Marn Davies to make the men look Neanderthal-ish, but if it’s for comedic effect, then the jokes need some punching up.

One bright spot in Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant that I wish we had more of is Emily Beecham as Kinley’s wife and mother of his children, who keeps their classic car repair shop running while he is away.  Beecham deservedly won Best Actress at Cannes a few years back for Little Joe (it’s a creepy film about a hungry plant), and while she’s underutilized here, she offers one of the film’s most impactful moments.  Beecham and Salim may not be the headline star, but they are the actors that leave the longest-lasting impression after the film has concluded. 

31 Days to Scare ~ Night Teeth

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by 31 Days to Scare, Movie Review • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Facts:

Synopsis: A college student moonlighting as a chauffeur picks up two mysterious women for a night of party-hopping across LA. But when he uncovers their bloodthirsty intentions – and their dangerous, shadowy underworld – he must fight to stay alive.

Stars: Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Debby Ryan, Lucy Fry, Raúl Castillo, Alfie Allen, Alexander Ludwig, Sydney Sweeney, Megan Fox

Director: Adam Randall

Rated: NR

Running Length: 107 minutes

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review:  If I haven’t said it enough already in the last few months, let me say it unequivocally: Netflix is truly running circles around the other streaming services (and Hollywood studios) in bringing back the pleasingly retro films that were made for mass appeal consumption in theaters two decades ago…but with a modern eye.  Already scoring this summer and again earlier this month with resurrections of the teen slasher film (the Fear Street trilogy {1994, 1978, 1666}, and There’s Someone Inside Your House), they’ve now got a sleek and stylish vampire flick on their hands, and I sure hope they treat it better than they did another one they unjustly ignored in July.  That would be Blood Red Sky, a wild action film that can be summarized bluntly as ‘vicious vampires on a hijacked plane’ but is way, way more insane that that.  The L.A. set Night Teeth is less in your face but every bit as entertaining in the way it unfolds at its own pace, benefitting from a charismatic cast and a sleek production overseen by director Adam Randall.

I’ve loved vampire movies ever since I can remember, voraciously reading all that I could, going as “Generic Vampire with Cape” for Halloween during my formative years more than a few times, and seeing every fanged flick that came out…but there’s a stumbling block I’ve found with each new one that arises up from its coffin.  With so many variations to the vampire lore, the rules are always changing so no two groups of bloodsuckers are ever quite the same.  Usually, this is just an excuse for lazy writers to work around small budgets, tiny talent, or miniscule creative input but first-time writer Brent Dillon finds an interesting morsel of a hook to set the stage for the events of Night Teeth that felt unforced for once. 

Turf wars have led to a long-standing rivalry between different tribes of vampires in and around the Los Angeles area.  As part of a truce enacted, tribes were expected to never feed on the unwilling, stay in their own neighborhoods, and never cross into the realm of another without being expressly invited…and that rarely happens.  Making sure the night hunters keep to their word is a band of human protectors and at the opening of Night Teeth it’s Jay (Raúl Castillo, Wrath of Man) one of these guards. that first realizes one tribe is about to start something big when he and his girlfriend come face to face with Victor (Alfie Allen, John Wick), a creepy leader for a tribe that isn’t known for playing nice.  It’s nearly sunrise, though, so any more action will have to wait for later that evening. 

Meanwhile, Jay’s brother Benny (Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Bumblebee) is a college student trying to make ends meet while dreaming of becoming a music producer.  Living with his grandmother and occasionally seeing Jay pop in, he’s a tad sheltered and doesn’t get out much. After overhearing Jay’s heated phone exchange, Benny convinces his unusually distracted older brother to let him fill in at his car service job to make some extra cash.  Posing as Jay, he sets out for a supposedly easy night chauffeuring for just one booking but after meeting the beautiful Blaire (Debby Ryan, The Opening Act) and her vixen-ish pal Zoe (Lucy Fry, Vampire Academy) he’ll wish he stayed home and finished mixing his latest demo track.  Because these are deadly dames.

Writer Dillon and director Randall keep most of Night Teeth tight and taut, never letting what could start to feel repetitious (Benny takes the women to a series of parties/locales where they enact some carnage in service to Victor’s plot to take over the L.A. scene) get too stale by the third round.  There are enough interesting things going on with Benny slowly discovering what’s going on after a few stops and characters that refreshingly aren’t obnoxious toxics so you want to remain engaged.  Usually in these movies a couple is thrown together just for some standard romantic entanglement but in Night Teeth the chemistry feels genuine, another piece that works for the overall benefit of its success.  I liked the energy Ryan and Fry were putting out there and enjoy even more what Lendeborg was giving back to them in return.

I don’t say it often but even at nearly two hours, the movie is just as long as it needs to be.  I’m not sure if I would have cut out anything because this was far more enjoyable than even the souped-up preview would have you believe.  I could have even done with more of certain aspects, like the all-too brief cameos of Megan Fox (Till Death) and Sydney Sweeney (Nocturne) as mavens of one tribe who realize far too late they’ve underestimated a rival.  For all you Fox fans that may be coming to this one expecting your queen to play a significant role…don’t expect too much.  If I tell you she only had one day of filming, does that give you an idea of what you’ll be getting?

While this might pair nice with Blood Red Sky for a double dose of vampire mayhem, double sides of Netflix’s most polished bloodsucking coin, I’d suggest you check out Randall’s previous film as well.  I See You came out in 2019 and is a sneaky little horror nugget that gets under your skin far more than you might think.  Like Night Teeth, it’s made with generous amount of style but doesn’t let any kind of flare overwhelm the necessary storytelling.  Do make the effort to sink your chompers into Night Teeth, especially to show Netflix these kinds of movies are valued and encourage them to make more!

 

Movie Review ~ Bad Boys for Life

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Old-school cops Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett team up to take down the vicious leader of a Miami drug cartel.

Stars: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe Pantoliano, Paola Nuñez, Jacob Scipio, Kate del Castillo, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Theresa Randle

Director: Adil & Bilall  (Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah)

Rated: R

Running Length: 123 minutes

TMMM Score: (8/10)

Review:  Though we’re in a time at the movies where it’s popular to revive old favorites that many had thought were done and over, it’s never a good sign to see a high profile movie star bruised by a string of box office duds return to the well of what was once profitable.  There was a time when having Will Smith in your film meant assured box office gold but one too many poor choices and a seemingly panicked desperation to be taken seriously as more than an action star led him down a path of wince-inducing downers and stinkbombs.  And while Martin Lawrence was never an A-List movie star, his eponymous landmark television show was a gigantic hit and, to be fair, he had his share of box office blockbusters, though none were what you would call challenging art.

When Lawrence and Smith first paired up for Bad Boys in 1995, it was Lawrence that was the bigger star and it showed on screen.  Re-watching the film recently it’s interesting to see how the movie, (originally intended as a much squishier comedy for other actors) was tailored around Lawrence’s style and how director Michael Bay (Pain & Gain) treated Smith more like Action Star Ken than as an actor who would go on to net several Oscar nominations.  By the time the sequel arrived a full eight years later, the tides had definitely turned and while Lawrence still received top billing, Bad Boys II was Smith’s film all the way.  It was longer and louder and absolutely horrible.  Returning director Bay took all the rules for making a bigger sequel too literally and delivered a ghastly horror of a movie, turning what was a fun buddy cop film into an offensively gross pile of mush that purported to be all style but was so far out of fashion it wasn’t even self-aware enough to realize it.  It made a killing at the box office but fans and critics revolted against it, waylaying any future plans…until now.

Normally, with sequels I’m of the mindset that it’s a good idea to watch the preceding films before catching a new one in theaters (unless we’re talking James Bond) because it helps you spot the consistencies, or lack thereof, throughout the series.  You’d be surprised at how good some franchise films are with carrying forward even the smallest of supporting roles through from film to film.  However, in the case of getting ready to screen Bad Boys for Life, I think watching Bad Boys II so close to seeing the third film was a mistake.  I was so put off by how smarmy that movie was that I went into the new one with a bad taste in my mouth, prepared to see the franchise sink lower.  That’s also taking into consideration after a 17 year break it just couldn’t be a good sign Lawrence and Smith had given in and come back to the roles that gave them both their first bona fide hit. Right?

Well, here’s the thing.  It turns out Bad Boys for Life is an energetic return to form for the two stars, a reunion that reminds us why their chemistry worked so well back in 1995.  By ditching hyper-kinetic director Bay and working with a script that forms the first semblance of a discernible plot in any of the films so far, the duo have righted a ship that was sunk on a massive scale almost two decades ago and given themselves a fine showcase on top of it all.  In addition to a fine supply of laughs, there’s genuine heart on display and a dedicated engagement from the stars which only serves to bring audiences closer along on this new rollicking ride.

Though a number of years have passed since we last took to the streets with Mike Lowery (Smith, Gemini Man) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence, Do the Right Thing), not a lot has changed with the veteran Miami cops.  Lowrey is still a fast-driving playboy that takes the fierce protection of his car’s interior as seriously as he does ensuring the streets of the city are free from drug violence.  Still claiming he’s going to retire any day, family man Burnett becomes a grandfather at the start of the movie which gives him one more reason to want to ditch the fast lane life Lowrey is addicted to for the more peaceful existence resting in his easy chair.  Plans for the future are put on hold, though, when a mysterious woman (Kate del Castillo, The 33) escapes from a Mexican prison and is reunited with her son Armando (Jacob Scipio), whom she dispatches to take ruthless revenge on a series of high profile (and familiar to us) individuals.  Spilling her secrets would delve into spoiler-territory but just know the multiple credited screenwriters have given Bad Boys for Life an appealing villain and villainess with an endless supply of cronies that don’t take kindly to any outside interference in their mission.

In previous films, Lowery and Burnett have largely been working on their own but this time they are paired with a young crew from AMMO, an elite squad of specialized officers led by Rita (Paola Nuñez) a former flame of Mike’s that was never fully extinguished.  There’s some clear groundwork being set to either create a spin-off for these new officers or keep them around if future installments are called for. I didn’t mind this too much, mostly because Vanessa Hudgens (Second Act), Alexander Ludwig (Lone Survivor), and Charles Melton knew when it was their turn to step up and when it was time to let Smith and Lawrence take center stage.

While I wouldn’t exactly say Smith is revitalized in Bad Boys for Life, he’s surely more on his game than he has been over the past several years.  Though he gives in to his bad habits of overselling dramatics in several opportune moments, he’s largely the charming action star that could open a summer movie with little effort and I’m hoping he enjoyed his work on the film because it suits him.  Lawrence is the real winner here, with the long-absent comedian making his welcome return to the screen (or public view in general) as a more centered, worldy-wise fella that holds to his convictions.  More often than not, the movie shifts gears to his strengths and that’s the wise, more entertaining choice.

I don’t know if it’s just because the two guys are getting older and have been through parenthood but Bad Boys for Life is also noticeably less heavy on the profanity that was so prevalent in the previous pictures.  It was non-stop in the second film to the point of pathetic obnoxiousness but the change for 2020 was welcome, if only to make one not feel so bad at the number of children in the theater attending the screening as well.  Belgian directors Adil & Bilall instead fill the movie with dynamic action sequences that are true showcases of brilliant stunt work and skilled execution.  They may lack in overall ‘pow’ factor that Bay could deliver but on the flip side I found them far easier to follow and stay engaged in.  With Bay’s films, they are so overproduced that you tend to want to step away from the movie for fear it may blow up in your face.  Adil & Bilall have a big movie on their hands but it has a way of bringing you closer in.

If rumors are true, a fourth film may be in the cards and Bay (who has a cameo in the film) is said to be returning as director.  Boy, I hope that isn’t true because I can only imagine how he’d mess up the good thing Smith and Lawrence have got going in this third Bad Boys film.  As of now, that’s in the distant future so until that becomes a reality just bask in the glow of a rarity – a successful return to a dormant series that’s been revived with an electric jolt.

Movie Review ~ Midway (2019)

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The Facts:

Synopsis:  US soldiers and pilots change the course of World War II during the Battle of Midway in June 1942 when US and Imperial Japanese naval forces fought for four days.

Stars: Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, Luke Evans, Aaron Eckhart, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Darren Criss, Woody Harrelson, Keean Johnson, Luke Kleintank, Dennis Quaid,  Tadanobu Asano, Alexander Ludwig

Director: Roland Emmerich

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 138 minutes

TMMM Score: (8/10)

Review: With the rise of the franchise action film, I’d forgotten what going to a Roland Emmerich movie was like.  The one-time master of the big event film made an impressive debut with Universal Solider in 1992 before going bigger with Stargate in 1994 and fully graduating to epic size with Independence Day in 1994.  In the years that followed, Emmerich struggled with maintaining the scale of his films and had trouble balancing the rising budgets with finding a strong narrative.  By 2013 he was directing White House Down which was similar in plot to Olympus Has Fallen and then he proceeded to go back for seconds on the critically reviled Independence Day: Resurgence.

It was a bit of a surprise for me, then, to see Emmerich’s name attached to Midway because I hadn’t thought the director would want to go for a historical film that would require him to stay within the lines a bit more than he was used to.  Turns out this was exactly the project he needed because aside from a handful of iffy performances and a walloping heap of bad dialogue, Midway emerges as the best effort from the director in years.  Yes, it has your standard roster of rousing speeches and that one impassioned pep talk that comes right before a character is unceremoniously killed off, but it also makes good use of its visual effects budget which helps to snare you into each high-flying fight scene that gets bigger with each battle.  I went in expecting a loud and obnoxious war movie along the lines of the loud and obnoxious Pearl Harbor from 2001, but I wasn’t anticipating coming out the other side having been fully engaged for the majority of Midway’s healthy running length.

Following the military action that took place between the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and the Battle of Midway in June of 1942, first time feature screenwriter Wes Tooke mixes historical figures with composites of the men that participated in these battles on the ground and in the air.  From a history lesson perspective, Tooke’s script is fast moving and filled with the kind of military jargon war junkies will find enticing, yet it isn’t such a deep dive that others will be lost.  Most of the time it’s clear where we are and what’s happening, though when the movie goes into it’s hyper-kinetic final hour it does help to keep mental notes of what is transpiring.  Not being a huge history stickler, I can’t tell you how well-researched Tooke’s script is or if it’s aligns perfectly with the timeline of events but certain accomplishments that seems too coincidental to be true seem to be backed up by historical fact as evidenced in post-credit character wrap-ups.

Where Tooke’s screenplay is lacking is when the characters have to, you know, talk about normal everyday stuff.  It’s here that his newbie-ness shows and it didn’t surprise me to learn he got started writing for a serialized podcast – much of the dialogue is expository that, while directed toward someone on screen, could just as easily be spoken directly into the camera for all the weight it’s given in relation to the combat-zone speak.  Characters that come off as phony baloney talking about their lives outside of the service suddenly take on a tone of authority when discussing the plans for their next air strike.  With only one actress in the main cast, it isn’t surprising the female characters are barely there and what we do see of them are as supportive wives that just want their husbands to come home safely or are standing by ready to cook a late night sandwich.  It’s a bit embarrassing that Tooke couldn’t have given any female something to do in the film other than play a sturdy rock to their more verbose spouse.

It also could be that Emmerich hasn’t cast the strongest actors either, with British Ed Skrein (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) struggling to maintain his East Coast drawl as hotshot pilot Dick Best.  Try as he might, Skrein never can quite convincingly get through one of his anthemic speeches to his fellow brothers in arms, to say nothing of the complete lack of chemistry he has with his wife, played by an equally vacant Mandy Moore (47 Meters Down).  Yet when Skrein is flying his dive bomber and pushing the limits to victory, he totally had me cheering him on.  In similar boats, or planes, are Luke Evans (Ma), Nick Jonas (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), Darren Criss (Girl Most Likely), Aaron Eckhart (Sully), Luke Kleintank (The Goldfinch), and Keean Johnson (Alita: Battle Angel).  While I’d argue that few of these chiseled actors looks like they would have passed basic training (especially Criss…as a fighter pilot? I think not.) as a unit there is something that gels as the movie progresses.

If there’s one bit of non-action sequences work the best in spite of the thin dialogue, it’s the scenes between Admiral Chester Nimitz (Woody Harrelson, Venom) and Lieutenant Commander Edwin T. Layton (Patrick Wilson, Annabelle Comes Home).  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Nimitz was assigned to take over command of the post and turned to Layton to use his expertise to help predict where the Japanese would attack next.  Layton then sought assistance from a codebreaker who had intercepted Japanese communications, helping them plan for the Battle of Midway.  While there are some hokey bits here and there, by and large these are the moments that land the best and it’s thanks to Harrelson and Wilson’s assured screen presence.  Coincidentally, these are also the passages of the film that are easy to get a bit turned around in — so best to stay alert when Wilson is laying out the game plan.

Where the movie really earns its stripes are the well-staged and skillfully rendered battle scenes featuring air strikes between the US and Japanese forces.  While I normally go a bit cross-eyed with excessive amount of green screen and CGI usage, it didn’t bother me as much in Midway as it wound up enhancing the experience, having the effect of putting the audience right into the middle of the action with alarming intensity.  Far from feeling like an overblown cartoon like previous Emmerich efforts, the visuals are nearly all expertly designed and beautifully executed, culminating in a deluxe finale that actually had me biting my nails.  Sure, it may be a bit chintzy at times but it’s the best kind of gobble-down-your-popcorn kind of fare.  Perhaps the editing could be tightened up a tiny smidge to assist in our tracking of the pilots and to avoid a few repetitive bits but there’s not a lot of the action that I’d want to see trimmed down.

Feeling like it was made with a great sense of honor and respect, I appreciated the gestures Tooke’s script made to Japanese customs as well.  Though dealing us a terrible blow and also being responsible for the deaths of thousands of Chinese that assisted American forces, the Japanese had a sense of nobility in their strategy as well.  It would have been easy (especially in the time we currently live in) to make this an All-American Apple Pie movie but taking a brief moment to acknowledge the losses on both sides doesn’t make any excuses, it simply recognizes the fallen.  If anything, Emmerich could have spent a little more time with the Japanese in the first half of the movie and I imagine he did but felt he could sacrifice those scenes when the movie was running long in his original cut.

Releasing just in time for Veterans Day, I’ll be interested to see how Midway plays with audiences during this quieter time before the busy Thanksgiving holiday draws near.  Though the Battle of Midway has been filmed before (check out 1976’s Midway starring Charlton Heston and Peter Fonda for a less visual effects heavy telling) and there’s more to the story than can be told in 138 minutes (again, there’s absolutely no stories involving women which was disappointing) I appreciated that Emmerich was restrained enough to save his big guns for when he needed it most and let the quieter moments play out.  Even if the quieter moments were clumsy, at least they were there.  For that, I give the movie a lot of credit for exceeding my expectations and providing more entertainment than I could have predicted at the outset.  Very much worth seeing on the big screen.

The Silver Bullet ~ The Final Girls

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Synopsis: A young woman grieving the loss of her mother, a famous scream queen from the 1980s, finds herself pulled into the world of her mom’s most famous movie. Reunited, the women must fight off the film’s maniacal killer.

Release Date: October 9, 2015

Thoughts: The concept of meta-horror was ushered in by Scream in 1996, spawning hundreds of imitations with diminishing results. The idea of a high concept horror film was jettisoned in favor of all out torture porn or found footage cheapies that did little to show there was any life in the fading genre.

With the revitalization of Scream as a television show on MTV and Scream Queens premiering on Fox this fall, meta-horror seems to be coming back in style so I’m interested to see where The Final Girls falls on the spectrum. Don’t get this one confused with Final Girl, another 2015 entry starring Abigail Breslin…especially confusing because both movies feature Alexander Ludwig (Lone Survivor) in a prominent role.

I’m not sure yet how this one is going to wind up – it’s either going to be a total 80s throwback gem or a stinker you want to throw back from whence it came. The rather long trailer seems to give away much of the overall joke and production values look questionable…but with a game cast featuring Malin Akerman (Rock of Ages), Adam DeVine (Pitch Perfect 2), and Taissa Farmiga (The Bling Ring) it’s definitely worth taking a shot on.

 

Movie Review ~ Lone Survivor

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lone_survivor

The Facts:

Synopsis: Marcus Luttrell and his team set out on a mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, in late June 2005. Marcus and his team are left to fight for their lives in one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare.

Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster, Ali Suliman, Alexander Ludwig, Eric Bana

Director: Peter Berg

Rated: R

Running Length: 121 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (8.5/10)

Review: “Holy moly.”  That’s what I found myself instinctively saying out loud several times during Lone Survivor, a taut war film that brings its audience along for a bone crunching journey along its razor’s edge of a true life tale.

I wasn’t sure what to make of Lone Survivor when early trailers were released.  I’ve grown wary of war films after years of similarly themed cinematic excursions both fictional and documentary-like that I just couldn’t fathom that this film, directed by Battleship helmer Peter Berg and starring Mark Wahlberg, would have anything new to bring to the battlefield.  Just goes to show that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover; or in this case judge a film by its marketing materials.

Berg opens the film with images from the limit-testing training that United States Navy SEALs undergo to take their place alongside the brave men and women serving our country.  It’s an eye-opening and pulse raising start, illustrating in no uncertain terms that only the best of the best make it through.  As the action transfers to a military base, we’re introduced to the members of the team of Operation Red Wings, tasked to track a high ranking dangerous Taliban leader.

Leading the team is Lieutenant Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch, John Carter, Savages), he’s joined by Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch, Killer Joe, The Darkest Hour), Matthew “Axe” Axelson (Ben Foster, Contraband), and Marcus Luttrell (Wahlberg, Ted, Pain & Gain) who wrote the book (along with Patrick Robinson) on which Berg adapted his screenplay from.  Comrades and brothers, this recon and surveillance team is a well oiled machine venturing into no man’s land with an important mission.

It’s not long before one wrong (but I suppose morally right) decision tosses the men into the path of mortal danger…leading to a middle section that puts the audience through a white knuckle gauntlet.  So many war films make the mistake of favoring jittery camera work to establish chaos but Berg and cinematographer Tobias Schliessler play against this and let their staging of these combat scenes tell the story instead.  There are several skillfully crafted heart pounding passages as the soldiers come face to face with their enemy and their own mortality.  Having already won a SAG Award for their work, special mention must be made again to the stunt performers on the film…with two sequences involving falling down the sheer edge of a mountain you’ll be wincing with each somersault/tumble.

Though the title gives the ending away, it doesn’t lessen the impact the film or its characters have on us.  Even when the film dips into standard stylized action fare in the last act there’s an underlying message of salvation to be had by everyone involved.  Berg has cast the film so well that he doesn’t need to coax committed performances out of anyone onscreen.  All four actors could have headlined the picture but Wahlberg again shows he’s light years away from his Funky Bunch days by turning in a layered rendering of Luttrell.

I expected the film to end with a dedication to the men who lost their lives but wasn’t prepared for how much of an emotional force it would have on me.  Berg and company have approached this material with the utmost respect for the bravery of those that put their lives on the line for their country and have delivered a superior war film that doesn’t glorify, grandstand, or proselytize…  It’s a better film that I ever would have thought it would/could be – and comes highly recommended.