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‘Lone Survivor’ is heavy on violence and lacks imagination Film Review Based on the memoir of Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who is played by producer Mark Wahlberg, “Lone Survivor” tells the story of Operation Red Wings, a disastrous 2005 mission to kill a prominent Taliban fighter, Ahmad Shah (Yousuf Azami). As the title gives away, the four-man team of commandos, ambushed and stranded without communications on a remote mountain in Afghanistan, is slowly, agonizingly whittled away, one by one, until … well, let’s leave some things to the imagination. Luttrell’s comrades-in-arms are played by Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch and Taylor Kitsch, each of whom is barely recognizable behind the
scruffy beards, grime and blood that cover their faces. Inexplicably, they wear no helmets. “Lone Survivor” is a loud and grinding affair, seemingly as intent on wearing down its audience as the Taliban is on the film’s heroes. At times, the violence is so unrelenting and fierce that it’s hard to believe that there’s anyone left alive, let alone with any bullets left to fire. What’s missing here is something, or rather, someone, to care about. Written and directed by Peter Berg (“Battleship”), the film presumes our emotional investment in Luttrell and his fellow soldiers’ mission. The questions of who exactly Shah is, other than one of many murderous thugs, and why we should care so deeply about his fate, is never really explained in a way that grabs the imagination. He’s no Osama bin Laden, in other words, and this is no “Zero Dark Thirty.” Even worse, Berg
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
Barely Surviving
Mark Wahlberg, left, Emily Hirsch, center, and Taylor Kitsch play SEALs who must take out a Taliban leader in “Lone Survivor.”
‘Lone Survivor’ (R) Director: Peter Berg Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Eric Bana In a Nutshell: Based on the reallife mission Operation Red Wings, members of SEAL Team 10 are tasked with the dangerous assignment of capturing or killing notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah.
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reader, possesses all of the boneheaded gags and inspired lunacy of the original, as well as swaths of dull, frankly unfunny material. But buried inside this grab bag of hits and misses is a pretty good point about the descent of television news into a miasma of 24/7 speculation, fluff and, most of all, hype. A.H.
(PG, 108 MINUTES) “Frozen” might not have potential pop hits — the songs sound much more like musical theater show tunes than Miley Cyrus auto-tuned — but the animated comedy-adventure has a sweet and very modern message, plus strong characters. More important, the movie blends the music-minded mentality of yore with the more recent ambition of truly appealing to all ages.
WARNER BROS.
‘Frozen’
Joaquin Phoenix, above, romances a sultry, Siri-like operating system in “Her.” Its surprising and poignant ending, which subverts so many fairy-tale stereotypes, feels as though it cancels out the movie’s small flaws and dragging moments. STEPHANIE MERRY
‘Grudge Match’ (PG-13, 113 MINUTES) Sylvester Stallone
stars in “Grudge Match” as Henry “Razor” Sharp, a former light heavyweight champ who inexplicably fled the sport in his hey-
gives us little reason to feel that we know the men who are hunting him, beyond a few lame lines of dialogue about someone’s upcoming wedding. They’re movie stars in camo, pretending to be massacred for the camera. Of course, the film is supposed to be a tale of heroism. And it is. Only the film’s real hero isn’t Luttrell, who survives unimaginable violence, including a leg injury that
requires pushing a bone back into place. We can’t say more without spoiling things, but “Lone Survivor’s” most fascinating character doesn’t even appear until the film’s final minutes, and is dealt with mostly in the whatever-happened-to titles that run on screen just before the closing credits. Now there’s a guy I would have gladly watched a whole movie about. MICHAEL O’SULLIVAN
day, avoiding a tie-breaking fight with longtime rival Billy “The Kid” McDonnen (played by Robert De Niro). Sly’s still got it — when it comes to action. Razor is lured out of retirement for the bout he evaded three decades earlier, and all the requisite training scenes — the jabbing and jogging, raw-egg-swilling and truck-pulling — are nearly as exhilarating as they were in 1976. Stallone’s acting, however, is a little rusty. With his garbled delivery, he never was a paragon of emotional depth, but now his frozen face only exacerbates his shortcomings when the comedic drama turns serious. S.M.
systems are in the throes of becoming exponentially more sophisticated. When Joaquin Phoenix’s character, Theodore, takes advantage of the latest upgrade, he finds that his computer is now being run by a charming, Siri-like disembodied voice that calls itself Samantha. Given beguilingly peppery voice by Scarlett Johansson, Samantha loses no time in seducing the lonely Theodore. Samantha’s circuitry is sophisticated enough to intuit and evolve according to Theodore’s feedback, so it’s no surprise when he starts to fall in love with her (er, it). A.H.
‘Her’
‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’
(R, 126 MINUTES) Set in a Los Angeles
that’s been ingeniously photographed to exploit its most futuristic vernacular, “Her” takes place at a time when our virtual lives have merged even more seamlessly with corporeal, real-world experience: Welcome to Earbud Nation. In this world, computer operating
(THE WASHINGTON POST )
(PG-13, 156 MINUTES) The first
installment of Peter Jackson’s adaptation of “The Hobbit” was bloated, boring and slow to get started. Jackson’s handsome new addition to the canon is a fleet, fun redemption of the film Continued on page 19