FILM REVIEW OF ''GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL" (1957)

Before director John Sturges made "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," he'd only made a few westerns, "The Walking Hills" with Randolph Scott, "Bad Day at Black Rock," with Spencer Tracy, and "Backlash" with Richard Widmark.  I'd say that "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" was the first of his big-budgeted westerns at Paramount Pictures with Hal Wallis producing this polished looking oater. Things are pretty straightforward with Burt Lancaster cast as a stern but charismatic Wyatt Earp sans a mustache, while Kirk Douglas looks a mite too robust as the consumptive Doc Holiday. This was the second time that Lancaster and Earp co-starred in a movie, but it was certainly the first of their best.  One of the best known western villains from the era clashed with the heroes; Lyle Bettger played Ike Clanton.  The music and the ballad of the O.K. Corral are not only atmospheric but accentuate the action.  Sturges stages a much bigger and more ambitious finale at the O.K. Corral with the Clantons shooting it out with Earp and company. This is a first-class horse opera that should be not be missed. If you're a western fan, you must see this movie. 

“Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” opens to “Duel in the Sun” composer Dimitri Tiomkin’s stirring music and Frankie Lane’s heroic lyrics.  Those lyrics punctuate the action and serve as the equivalent of a Greek chorus.  The first scene details a showdown between Kirk Douglas and character actor Lee Van Cleef in a saloon.  Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) is riding through town when Holiday sets foot in a saloon to challenge Ed Baily (Lee Van Cleef) for shooting his brother.  The catch is the neither man is allowed to carry firearms in the saloon.  Doc conceals a switchblade in his cuff, while Baily keeps a derringer in his boot.  No sooner has Doc thrown a knife into Ed Baily’s chest than Sheriff Cotton Ryan (Frank Faylen) arrests him and sticks him in jail.  Later, as a lynch mob assembles, a desperate Kate Fisher (Jo Van Fleet) entreats Wyatt to help Doc escape the lynch mob.  Wyatt helps Doc get out of town.  Afterward, Wyatt runs into Doc when he enters Dodge City.  Dead broke, Doc plans to gamble up some money and he gets Wyatt to loan him money.  

The ‘square deal’ friendship between Wyatt and Doc gets off to a start after they gun down Richie Bell and his bank robbing buddies who try to sneak into their camp and dry gulch them.  Meanwhile, Wyatt takes up with a headstrong lady gambler Laura Denbow (Rhonda Fleming of “Pony Express”) who gives him a hard time when he arrests her.  The romance between Wyatt and Laura is short-lived because she refuses to follow him when he rides to Tombstone to support brother Morgan and Virgil Earp.  About an hour into the action, gunslinger Johnny Ringo (John Ireland of “Red River”) shows up to steal Kate from Doc.  They develop an intense rivalry and Doc wings him during a saloon shoot-out.  Doc and Wyatt solidify their relationship when they have a showdown with Shanghai Pierce (Ted De Corsia of “Vengeance Valley”) in Dodge City.

When Wyatt’s three brothers summon him to Tombstone, he finds Doc Holiday riding along to join him.  Laura refuses to accompany Wyatt so he leaves her.  Initially, Morgan and Virgil hate the idea of Doc hanging around with Wyatt.  No sooner has Doc arrived in Tombstone than his old nemesis Ringo and Kate blow into town.  Doc and Ringo clash but Morgan convinces Doc not to kill him.  Ike Clanton (Lyle Bettger of “The Lone Ranger”) rustles Mexican cattle and tries to ship it through Tombstone, but Wyatt and his brothers refuse to let him do it.  Eventually, Ike and his brothers have it out at the O.K. Corral in a beautifully staged shoot-out with the Earps.  In an evocative scene, Wyatt, his brothers and Doc assemble for the big finale.

John Sturges has “The Lives of a Bengal Lancer” lenser Charles Lang shoot set-ups from low angles to make everything look larger than life.  Terrific stuff! Sturges would stick to the facts more closely with his unofficial sequel "Hour of the Gun" with James Garner cast as Wyatt Earp.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE MONUMENTS MEN'' (2014)

I love World War II movies, even stinkers like Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds.”  For the record, I prefer Enzo G. Castellari’s made-in-Italy, World War II mission movie “The Inglorious Bastards” (1978) that Tarantino took and altered drastically with his remake.  Nevertheless, I haven’t seen a good World War II epic since Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) with Tony Hanks.  Everything after “Saving Private Ryan” pales in comparison to classics such as “A Bridge Too Far ,” “Battle of the Bulge,” “Beach Red,” “Castle Keep,” “Catch 22,” “Sands of Iwo Jima,” “The Bridge at Remagen,” “The Devil’s Brigade,” “The Dirty Dozen,” “The Great Escape,” “The Guns of Navarone,” “The Longest Day,” and “The Train.”  These seminal films appear with regularity during patriotic holidays on both AMC and Turner Classics.  Initially, I thought writer & director George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men” (** OUT OF ****) might tower above all the second-rate shrapnel that Hollywood has been shelling out like “Normandy,” “Company of Heroes,” “Battle Force,” “Fortress,” “Red Tails,” “Saints and Soldiers: Airborne Creed,” and “Pathfinders.”  Unfortunately, this fascinating chapter in World War II history about Allied soldiers who toiled to save the treasured paintings and sculptures of Western Civilization that Adolf Hitler looted during his 12-year reign as Der Führer amounts to a monumental bore.  Meantime, Clooney has assembled a superlative cast including “Private Ryan” himself Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett.  The production values look first-rate.  Clooney’s production designers and art directors shot the works with their $70-million budget to create sprawling scenes of bombed out towns and authentic aircraft laden military landing fields.  Furthermore, to accentuate the realism, they lensed these maneuvers on location in England and Germany, too.

“The Monuments Men” covers an overlooked chapter in American military history that occurred after the Allies broke through Hitler’s defenses on the French coast in 1944.  Clooney and co-scripter Grant Heslov, who co-produced and appears briefly as a doctor in a scene, adapted the history tome “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History” by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter.  This World War II movie focuses on an outfit of old-ball scholars, architects, and museum curators who sought to recover all the art works that Hitler pilfered and planned to place in a Nazi museum in his home town in Austria.  An earlier text “The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War” by Lynn H. Nichols documented this little known part of history.  Indeed, Public Broadcasting produced a documentary based on the Nichols book back in 2008.  The documentary is more exciting than anything that Clooney recreates in this static spectacle.  Burt Lancaster played a brave French railroad official in “The Train” (1964) who thwarted the Nazis from stealing art.

“The Monuments Men” resembles a 1960s era World War II blockbuster with its plethora of military uniforms and equipment.  World War II fanatics will appreciate the authentic Sherman tank that rumbles past the camera in two scenes.  No, you won’t find any M-48 Patton tanks masquerading as either Sherman or Tiger tanks.  Unfortunately, little violence occurs in this loquacious, leisurely 119 minute opus.  Two of our heroes die from enemy bullets with a minimum of bloodshed.  Two of them capture a Nazi youth sniper during a brief exchange of rifle fire.  “The Bridge at Remagen” contained a similar scene.  A firefight breaks out in a peaceful pasture between Nazis and American G.I.s after one of our heroes spots a stallion and stops to admire it.  A Nazi officer fires his pistol at an off-screen Allied officer and mortally wounds him. Neither are shown in the same shot dramatically slinging lead at each other.  George Clooney swings a pick-ax at a brick wall.  Possibly the worst thing that occurs on screen is several actors smoke cigarettes.  The smoking is virtually pervasive.  Remember, Uncle Sam stuck cigarettes in K-rations.  Sometimes a rare profane word is uttered.  Otherwise, “The Monuments Men” amounts to a lukewarm World War II movie that loiters on the peripheral of the action.  At one point, two of our heroes are in the Battle of the Bulge.  Clooney never cuts loose with a machine gun at the Nazis.  Indeed, our starry cast spends more time talking about what they are going to do than riddling at the enemy with lead.  Occasionally, Clooney shows us the evil Nazis as they gloat over the stolen artwork.  Our heroes do undergo basic training.  At one point, a character stops crawling on an obstacle course and stands up while a G.I. is firing a machine gun.  Later, he is appalled when he learns that the soldier was blasting away with bullets instead of blanks!  “The Monuments Men” shuns conspicuous blood and gore as much as it avoids dramatic conflict. 

“The Monuments Men” suffers from several shortcomings.  First, characterization is one-dimensional.  We are given little insight into the heroes.  Each has a nominal scene that introduces them, but Clooney is more interested in what they are doing than who they are.  Cate Blanchett plays the most provocative character.  She served as a secretary to the Nazis and maintained a journal of their systemic looting of treasures from Paris.  Initially, she is imprisoned for collaborating with the Nazis, when she hated them.  After our heroes spring her she approaches them with suspicions until Matt Damon flashes his reassuring smile.  Second, the storytelling is episodic.  Various men go off on various adventures.  Third, the adventures lack pugnacity.  Nothing memorable either happens or is uttered.  Fourth, Clooney abhors dramatize anything.  A land mind scene in a cave could have yielded a little sweat and anxiety, but Clooney plays it strictly for amusement.  Fifth, the orchestral theme music fails to bolster the action and often sounds like it is undercutting it.  Watching “The Monuments Men” is the equivalent of fatigue duty.

FILM REVIEW OF ''I, FRANKENSTEIN" (2014)

A cleverly reimagined but lightweight horror chiller, “I, Frankenstein” (*** OUT OF ****) qualifies as an entertaining, PG-13 rated, supernatural saga about the further adventures of the infamous monster.  “Tomorrow, When the War Began” writer & director Stuart Beattie and “Underworld” scenarist Kevin Grevioux, who wrote the Darkstorm Studios graphic novel prequel, have forged a fast-moving fantasy that borrows from the “Underworld” franchise, “Legion,” “Priest,” “Batman,” and “Constantine.”  Unlike previous “Frankenstein” films, however, “I, Frankenstein” occurs in a contemporary setting after a brief 18^th century prologue.  Our stitched together protagonist finds himself caught between an order of virtuous Gargoyles and wicked Demons in an apocalyptic battle for the fate of Earth.  Essentially, with regard to Biblical time-lines, the action takes place after the fall of Satan.  Leading man Aaron Eckhart has definitely surpassed himself not only with his chiseled, six-pack physique as the centuries old monster, but also with a haunted performance that evokes sympathy for the anti-heroic monster.  Mind you, Frankenstein’s monster remains a treacherous character, rough-hewn-around-the-edges, without a twinkle in his gimlet eyes.  When Eckhart isn’t striking a cool, anti-heroic pose,  Bill Nighy’s nefarious villain-in-charge mesmerizes us with another polished performance.  Naturally, Nighy is cast as the supreme Demon, Prince Naberius, who looks quite a sight when he shape-shifts into a Demon.  Listening to this seasoned British actor deliver his dialogue with a succulent relish for each syllable is a treat in itself.  Meantime, director Beattie stages several exciting entrances and exits by both the Gargoyles and our hero.  Heroes and villains love to plunge through ceilings like Michael Keaton did as the Caped Crusader in the 1989 “Batman.”  The close-quarters combat sequences are reminiscent of “Priest” (2011) with the monster wielding two-and-a-half foot-long sticks.  The settings and the costumes imbue the action with atmosphere.  “Wolverine” director of photography Ross Emery makes everything appear visually resplendent, particularly when Demons die in battle.  When a Demon dies, its body glows incandescently and then erupts into fireballs.

“I, Frankenstein” picks up Mary Shelley’s classic narrative thread and then ushers its immortal monster into a contemporary setting.  In voice-over narration, the grim monster provides us with all the important details about Victor Frankenstein (Aden Young of “Black Robe”) and his success with reanimating dead tissue.  So disgusted did Frankenstein feel about what he had created from eight corpses and brought to life using electric eels that he bundled it up and dumped it into a river.  Nevertheless, the monster managed to survive, and it murdered Frankenstein’s wife.  Frankenstein pursued the blasphemous creation into the frozen wilderness, but the mad scientist succumbed to the elements before he could dispatch the monster.  Afterward, the notorious Prince Naberius (Bill Nighy of “Underworld”) learned about the monster and included him in his ambitious plans to resurrect an army of Demons confined in Hell.  He appoints Zuriel (Socratis Otto of “Gone”) to capture the monster after the latter has buried his creator.  Two Gargoyles intervene on the monster’s behalf as the Demons challenge him at his father’s burial site.  After repulsing the Demons, Frankenstein’s monster finds himself airlifted by the Gargoyles to a cathedral where he meets their matriarch.  Queen Leonore (Miranda Ott of “War of the Worlds”) refuses to let her brawny second-in-command, Gideon (Jai Courtney of “Jack Reacher”), slay the monster.  Instead, she names the monster “Adam.”  Could anything have been less  symbolic?  She explains that the Gargoyles and the Demons have been waging an eternal war that mankind knows nothing about despite the high body count on both sides.  At the same time, Naberius has fooled two scientists into working for his cause to replicate Frankenstein’s success with bringing the dead back to life.  Naturally, Terra (lovely Yvonne Strahovski of “Killer Elite”) dismisses the legend of Frankenstein as hokum.  Eventually, she comes face-to-face with reality when she meets not only Adam but also peruses Frankenstein’s journal.  Mind you, “I, Frankenstein” emphasizes thrilling, athletic action set-pieces so our hero and heroine have no time to enjoy intimacy in a romantic sense.  Terra spends her time sewing up part of Adam’s back when he isn’t rescuing her as a damsel-in-distress from Prince Naberius’ minions.  For the record, Naberius’ chief henchman, the hulking Dekar, who speaks in a voice that sounds like it comes from the pit of Hell itself, is played by writer Kevin Grevioux!

“I, Frankenstein” is a good movie, but it suffers from several shortcomings.  First, exposition dominates the action.  Any time you conjure up a fantasy world, you must explain who is who and what is what.  Virtually every other line of dialogue serves to explain details.  Director Stuart Beattie and scripter Kevin Grevioux shoehorn in a plethora of information about whom and what into this lean and mean movie that takes up less than 90 minutes when you subtract the end credits.  Incidentally, you need not sit out the end credits for fear of missing any additional scenes.  Nonetheless, some of their exposition must have hit the editing room floor.  For example, we are told neither how the monster acquired his superhuman strength nor his immortality.  Between the times that Adam finds his creator frozen in the snow and encounters Terra, more than two hundred years have passed!  Second, the visual effects are lackluster.  The Demons look like they don Halloween masks when they transform and the Gargoyles look pretty hokey as they hover in flight by flapping their reptilian wings.  Presumably, the $69-million budget went to other things.  Happily, Beattie and Grevioux discarded everything else about the traditional Frankenstein monster’s hideous appearance from the original movies.  He doesn’t have bolts protruding from his neck.  He doesn’t stomp around like a sleep-walking soldier and he speaks in complete sentences.  He is more like Robert De Niro’s monster in “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” (1994) because he possesses intelligence.  Altogether, despite some obvious weaknesses, “I, Frankenstein” is a lot of fun to watch, and I enjoyed it so much that I saw it a second time.

FILM REVIEW OF "JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT" (2014)

Chris Pine follows in the footsteps of Ben Affleck, Harrison Ford, and Alec Baldwin as the fourth actor to breathe life into Tom Clancy’s best-selling, literary hero Jack Ryan.  Happily, Pine handles himself well both in the action scenes as well as the dialogue interludes.  Sadly, neither freshman scribe Adam Cozad nor seasoned “Jurassic Park” scenarist David Koepp provide Pine with anything quotable.  Meanwhile, Pine’s chief adversary, played by Shakespearean trained thespian Kenneth Branagh, lacks not only memorable lines but also intimidating scenes.  Branagh’s best bad guy scene shows him sticking a white LED light bulb into the leading lady’s mouth.  Dreadful consequences, he warns our emaciated heroine, will ensue if he shatters the bulb in her mouth.  Meantime, as director, Branagh regales us with beautiful scenery both urban and rural, inevitable automotive chases continents apart, immaculate shoot-outs between Russian and CIA gunmen, and our hero in close-quarters combat with adversaries.  Branagh doesn’t orchestrate these activities with his usual finesse.  Essentially, the $60-million dollar “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” (** OUT OF ****) qualifies as a derivative espionage thriller with most of the clichés intact.   One of the worst clichés involves slender Keira Knightley posing as a helpless damsel-in-distress.  You know from the moment that you see her that she is going to be the tennis ball heroine who gets swatted back and forth between the hero and the villains.  The wicked Branagh plots an appropriately horrific 9/11 attack on Manhattan that will set off another devastating global economic depression.  Branagh’s millionaire Russian villain hopes this geopolitical strategy will destroy America.  Comparatively, Batman’s arch foe Bane pulled a similar stunt in “The Dark Knight Rises.”  If it succeeds in doing nothing else, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” resurrects the long dormant enmity between the Russians with a retro-Cold War agenda and the United States.
 

For the record, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” doesn’t pick up the narrative thread where either “Clear and Present Danger” (1994) or “The Sum of All Fears” (2002) faded out.  “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriotic Games,” and “Clear and Present Danger” constituted the first series of Jack Ryan’s cinematic escapades.  Incidentally, Paramount tampered with Clancy’s literary chronology because the novel “Patriotic Games” preceded “The Hunt for Red October.”  Meanwhile, “The Sum of All Fears” (2002) amounted to a franchise reboot with Ben Affleck.  Director Kenneth Branagh’s spy saga has no connection to the previous four films.  Moreover, the filmmakers didn’t adapt a Tom Clancy novel to serve as the basis for “Jack Ryan.”  The bestselling author passed away in October 2013.  Reportedly, Paramount Pictures hired Adam Cozad to rewrite his own screenplay "Dubai" and convert the hero into Jack Ryan.  Branagh and scenarists David Koepp and Cozad have retained our hero’s financial background and his terrifying helicopter accident.  Since this is another ‘origins’ reboot, Paramount has altered the dates.  Indeed, renegade Russians are behaving like their Communistic ancestors before the empire collapsed in 1989.  You might go so far as to describe this movie as a retro-Cold War saga pitting Uncle Sam against the Russian Bear.  

The first time we see our protagonist Jack Ryan (Chris Pine of “Star Trek”) he is catching forty winks on a bench.  Ryan has enrolled as a student at the London School of Economics.  As he is ambling back to class, Jack notices a commotion around a television set.  The year is 2001, and the unbelievable has happened to the World Trade Center.  Stunned by this tragic turn of events, Ryan joins the Marine Corps and becomes a jarhead lieutenant.  Narrowly, he escapes death when enemy mortar fire brings down the helicopter that he is riding in over Afghanistan.  Badly smashed up from the attack, Jack struggles to walk again.  A pretty physical therapist, Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley of “Domino”), enters Jack’s life and motivates him to keep on trying.  Jack and Cathy know they are made for each other, but their jobs create tension and suspicion.  CIA Agent Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner of “No Way Out”) recruits Ryan after our protagonist proves he can walk again.  Harper sends Jack back to school for a Ph.D. in Economics.  Harper never takes his eye off Ryan.

A decade later, Harper plants Ryan as an agency mole on Wall Street to ferret out possible terrorist activities in the financial community.  Suspecting that Soviet Afghan war veteran Viktor Cheverin (Kenneth Branagh of “Hamlet”) has been manipulating finances with evil designs, Jack flies to Russia to confront him.  Jack’s life changes irrevocably after he lands in Moscow.  Harper watches over Ryan like a guardian angel from the shadows.  A first-rate sniper, Harper has no qualms about shooting anybody who interferes with Ryan.  After their initial meeting, Viktor invites Jack to dinner at a restaurant across the street from his headquarters.  At the last minute, Jack’s fiancée Cathy surprises them both with her presence.  Cathy fascinates Viktor so much so that he forgets about Ryan.  While Viktor flirts with Cathy, Ryan burglarizes Viktor’s computers to get the goods on him.  Of course, the Russians get wise to Ryan, but he escapes without incriminating himself.

The best thing about “Jack Ryan” is that Branagh maintains headlong momentum despite all of the predictable, standard-issue, melodramatics.  Unhappily, most of what occurs here has been done before with greater flair by the James Bond spectacles and the Jason Bourne thrillers.  The final scenes in New York City generate a modicum of suspense as our hero tangles with a committed terrorist who wants to blow Wall Street to smithereens.  Again, we’ve seen this kind of hair-raising nonsense too often for it shake us up.  Kevin Costner seems squandered in a co-starring role as an agency spook who recruits Jack.  Vic Armstrong and his colleagues perform several tough stunts, but “Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit” suffers from an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.  This is probably the least entertaining Jack Ryan outing.

FILM REVIEW OF "LONE SURVIVOR" (2013)

Mark Wahlberg struggles to stay alive in war-torn Afghanistan throughout "Friday Night Lights" director Peter Berg's "Lone Survivor," (*** OUT OF ****) a heroic but tragic combat chronicle co-starring Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Eric Bana. This gritty, profane, but ill-fated secret mission saga about former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell's battlefield exploits qualifies as an entertaining but predictable saga. Basically, this blood, sweat, and tears, mission-gone-awry movie reminded me of Ridley Scott's grueling warfare spectacle "Black Hawk Down." Scott's actioneer dealt with a disastrous mission in Somalia, back in 1993, when U.S. Rangers were dispatched to snatch two warlords out of a town teeming with heavily armed fanatics. They encountered chaos galore and had to fight for their lives. Comparably smaller in scale, "Lone Survivor" lacks the harrowing intensity of "Black Hawk Down." Our desperate "Lone Survivor" hero endures a nightmare-experience that lesser souls would never have survived. Sadly, his three SEAL team unit members caught none of his breaks. Nevertheless, while watching "Lone Survivor," I didn't feel like I was dodging a firestorm of ordnance as I did when I sat through "Black Hawk Down." Despite its two-hour plus length, "Lone Survivor" never bogs down. Although Berg's combat choreography lacks the visceral quality of "Black Hawk Down," the "Lone Survivor" stunts look and sound very physical. Scenes of soldiers plummeting down the sides of craggy mountains made me flinch. Recently, I fell and shattered by right elbow so every time one of the SEALs struck either a rocky outcropping or a tree, I cringed at the sickening sounds. Specifically, Berg doesn't emphasize the predicament that ricocheting bullets posed. If you read the frank and outspoken Luttrell, whose memoir Berg adapted, the SEAL team member wrote about how ricochets could prove as menacing as the shots themselves. Most of the time, the SEALs find themselves trapped in terrain with scant foliage. Meaning, it was doubly difficult for them to hide not only from the flying lead but also ricochets. Unlike Luttrell, Berg doesn't dwell at length on the fatal mistake and its consequences as much as Luttrell's memoir. Instead, Berg winds up depicting the SEALs as honorable men who refused to take the easy way out of a moral quandary.

"Lone Survivor" covers the three days during Operation Red Wing when an elite four-man unit of Navy SEALs set out to capture Taliban chieftain Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami of "Crank") in the rugged Hindu Kush Mountains of the Kunar Province. They want Ahmad because he masterminded the murder of 20 American soldiers. Like the disastrous mission in "Black Hawk Down," the "Lone Survivor" heroes are conducting business-as-usual until everything that can go wrong goes horrendously wrong. Similarly, like "Black Hawk Down," "Lone Survivor" derives its narrative from a factual, eyewitness account. During the opening credits, Berg gives us a glimpse at wannabe Navy SEALs negotiating a gauntlet of an obstacle course. Grainy, documentary-style footage of SEALs enduring the worst that you can imagine outside of combat foreshadows the tenacity of our heroes. They can take a licking and keep on ticking. Afterward, we meet the quartet of warriors and enjoy their easy-going camaraderie. Twenty-nine-year old Texas native Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg of "Ted") is a Hospital Corpsman who has no idea how complicated his life will be on his next mission. Luttrell's friends, Lt. Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch of "John Carter"), Gunner's Mate Danny P. Dietz (Emile Hirsch of "Savages"); and Sonar Technician Matthew "Axe" Axelson (Ben Foster of "3:10 to Yuma"), are just as oblivious. Thoughts about home and their loved ones dominate their thoughts. No sooner have they reached their objective than an elderly goat herder and two boys accidentally stumble onto them in the brush. Our heroes capture these Taliban loyalists and take them prisoner. Lieutenant Murphy boils down their options. First, they can execute their hostages. Second, they can leave them tied to trees in the wilderness like snacks for wild animals. Third, they can release them and scrub the mission. Our heroes behave like noble western gunfighters. They decide to turn the shepherd and his sons loose. Luttrell and company believe they can clear out before the enemy show up. Unfortunately, our heroes find themselves suddenly surrounded by an army of Taliban terrorists armed with AK-47 assault rifles with an inexhaustible supply of ammunition. In his memoir, Luttrell compared their predicament to Custer's Last Stand. Afterward, a running gun battle follows with our heroes mowing down terrorists by the dozens. The problem is the Taliban have the SEALs hopelessly outnumbered and our heroes have nowhere to go. Worse, the SEALs have trouble getting a clear signal so they can contact headquarters and summon relief helicopter gunships!

Characterization remains sketchy at best in "Lone Survivor." Indeed, we never gain much insight into the Americans as three dimensional characters. Berg treats the quartet of SEALs as if they were an ensemble so you're not sure initially who is going to buy the farm. No single character lords it over the others in spite of their respective ranks. Not surprisingly, the Americans emerge as sympathetic, but the filmmakers don't demonize the Taliban. Primarily, Berg keeps the villains at arm's length. The Taliban amounts to pugnacious, trigger-happy, dastards. Essentially, they resemble the hordes of Apache Indians in a cavalry western. We know little about them except that they are miserable marksmen, wear too much eye-liner, and live only to slaughter Americans with extreme prejudice. Surprisingly, Berg shuns any geopolitical messages or cultural bias. The sloppy but violent combat sequences will keep you distracted from diatribes from either side. "Lone Survivor" is a good movie, but you won't want to see it more than once.