New Movie “Lone Survivor” Leaves Movie Goers Speechless

And then there was silence.  The number one movie of the weekend was over and it was sobering to look around the theater and witness the complete awe and respectful silence.  Yesterday afternoon I went to see the new movie “Lone Survivor” and was thoroughly impressed.    

Inspired by the book of the true story of Navy Seal, Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell, the story line of the movie differs somewhat from the book, but the action of the film makes up for the loss of some of the character development you get in the book.

I was amazed at how the movie hit on so many different emotions.  At one point after rolling down the side of a mountain, character “Axe” remarked, “Well that sucked” and the audience rolled in laughter.  And in just minutes, while two of the characters hit the height of a sentimental moment, causing my wife and several other ladies to sob, the action completely changed direction and made everyone in the theater jump in fear. Then Axe did it again as he looked at Luttrell and said, "Did they really just shoot me in the head?"

The movie stars Ben Foster, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Eric Bana and Mark Wahlberg as Luttrell.  Though the movie was actually filmed in New Mexico,  the director did an incredible job of scenery selection and truly made movie goers feel as though the guys were in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Lone Survivor tells the story of Luttrell and three other teammates of Navy Seal Team 10 and their fateful events from June 28, 2005 in Afghanistan. The four were assigned to a reconnaissance mission, operation RED WING, in the mountain region of Afghanistan.

Their objective was to gather intelligence on Taliban movement in the area. Luttrell’s team was eventually discovered and outnumbered by over 200 Taliban fighters. Petty Officer Luttrell was the only one to survive enemy contact.

In the rescue mission that ensued, 16 Special Forces personnel, including 8 SEALs, died when their helicopter was shot down by Taliban fighters. It was the largest single-day loss of life in the SEALs’ history.

Check out Lone Survivor’s Official movie trailer below.  Caution, there’s some really rough language and some graphic violence, so taking the kids wouldn’t be the best idea.