David Farnor | On 11, Jun 2014

Director: Peter Berg
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster
Certificate: 15

At the end of Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor, a familiar sound appears: David Bowie’s Heroes, sung in slow motion by an acoustic American, as photos of the real soldiers upon whom the war movie is based flash across the screen. It’s a moment that sticks in the throat, partly because nobody should ever be allowed to cover David Bowie’s Heroes, and partly because it feels like a mawkish end to a decidedly unmawkish film.

Lone Survivor has been the subject of much debate, with some labelling it as pro-war, but when it comes to the conflict, Berg is brutal: handhelds, sharp cuts, deafening noises. When a team of Navy SEALs, led by Marcus Luttrell (Wahlberg), find themselves surrounded in the Afghanistan mountains, they run through the woods and fall off cliffs with sickening realism – you feel every blow.

It’s a superbly directed and edited bout of action, one that grips and terrifies in equal measure. This isn’t a gung-ho thriller. This, you imagine, is what war is actually like on the ground. Every time you think the group are safe, another thing goes wrong. The message is clear: the cavalry aren’t coming.

Berg’s brains don’t stop there, though: we have to wait for 20 minutes before we’re stranded in the field. Marcus and his band of brothers are introduced in a slow first act with all the usual broad clichés But Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster bring a surprising depth to their roles. In fact, we spend more time getting to know them than Wahlberg’s titular last man standing; as a result, when they get injured, it means something. We’re not just in the same physical shoes as Marcus, but emotional too. Accompanied by a rousing rock score from Explosions in the Sky, the team’s push to stay alive in the face of ever-stacked odds becomes an inspiration as much as an ordeal – a tribute to the real life men who fell in battle in Operation Red Wings.

Then along comes Bowie. Tipping the balance into schmaltz, it’s a heavy-handed conclusion to an intentionally un-heavy-handed film – a moment that may play well to patriotic American audiences, but in the UK risks throwing the whole movie into we-love-the-military sentiment. Peter Berg’s movie isn’t a pro-war film or an anti-war film: it’s a film about war. And a good one at that. But if you stop playing before the end credits, the whole endeavour will seem much more heroic.

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