Yesterday I finally got to see this film starring Mark Wahlburg. It is mostly based on the popular book by Ex navy seal, Marcus Latrell, who is played by Wahlburg. I say mostly, because it deviated from the book in a couple of key ways, from what I can recall. More on that later. That being said, it did bring the book to life in a dramatic way.
The story is about a 4 or 5 person Navy Seal team that was sent into Afghanistan for the purpose of killing a high-value target within the Taliban. They showed it was a larger operation, but this film focused on Latrell’s team. They were doing re-con high up in the mountains when they were discovered by a couple of goat herders. Having captured them, the Seals were faced with a decision to make. They have to decide whether to kill them, tie them up, or cut them loose and face a serious battle. Instead of making the decision themselves, they attempt to contact JSOC, their operational command. This is where we first find out they have a serious problem with their communications. Realizing this, they are forced to make the decision themselves.
Spoilers…
Obviously, the decision they make is to cut the goat herders loose, which sets the stage for a serious battle. Suffice it to say the battle lives up to the title of the film. This version of the events also corresponds accurately to the events described in the book, Marcus Latrell is, the Lone Survivor. After the initial battle is concluded and Marcus is left to fend for himself, this is where we come to the first major deviation from the events described in the book. Within minutes he finds a stream. Being severely dehydrated, he immediately jumps in and drinks buckets of water. When he looks up, boom, right in front of him is an Afghani villager. In the book, these events are as described, but just not in this compressed time frame. In the book, I am pretty sure, he survives at least one night by himself in a cave. Anyhow this villager was not Taliban and ended up protecting Latrell. He takes him back to his village and shelters him, temporarily until the Taliban catches wind of his location.
Shortly afterward a battle ensues and one of the scenes shows Latrell being strangled, nearly to death, when an afghan kid hands him a knife, with which he uses to kill a Taliban. This was not in the book and did not happen in real life. I was recently listening to an NPR interview of Marcus Latrell and he confirmed this part was pure Hollywood artistic license. The final deviation from the book was just the overall timeline. The book made it look like all the events occurred within a twenty four hour timeline, when in actuality the events spanned a three day period of time. I completely get why they did it this, being pretty difficult to collapse a lot of things into two hours. I wanted to mention, Marcus Latrell himself had a cameo appearance in the movie, had a few lines, and was killed in a helicopter crash.
I watched this film at the theatre in Ontario. I was pretty disappointed this film was not available in IMAX, as I would have much preferred the upgraded audio and video. Anyhow the smaller screen did not distract me too much. The theater I was in was packed to the brim, this being the opening weekend. Other than the minor problems I pointed out, I did enjoy this film and found it to be pretty accurate. I would also recommend the film.
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