Old Knudsen Reviews Lone Survivor

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of pain. USA, USA! So I watched this movie that was based on a true story. I don't want to give away any spoilers but figure it out, lone survivor and Marky Mark is shown in the first two minutes getting emergency medical attention. Might as well have called it, 'Everyone but Marky Mark dies.' 

It starts of by showing how tough and driven US navy seals are ..... wasn't even an issue, Old Knudsen respects these guys. If you meet them out of the military setting you'll find them to be polite quiet guys who carry around the embodiment of what being American is. Unassuming, laid back apple pie guys who don't need to brag or to prove themselves to anyone.   

Unlike the US Marines who feel the need to tell everyone how great they are and look down on anyone who isn't them.

Lone survivor is about a navy seal operation to kill or capture a notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, code named Rick James, in Afghanistan in 2005. 
It shows the human side of the men talking about wedding gifts and being more than just a team but being a family as what happens in most military units. 

 Some gratuitous man flesh as there were no female characters in this story.
Taylor Kitsch plays the lieutenant .

  

 

Alexander Ludwig from the TV show Vikings plays a young seal frogman eager to be sent on his first combat operation . His character Shane Patton who was a real soldier like the rest of the characters died ..... see the movie's title. Sent on yer first op and it's yer last, all that difficult training and those skills you learned. Such a waste of human life but that is what heroes do.

In the movie the Seals have technical problems with communications trying to contact the base, this was one of the major reasons for the massive fuck up similar to Ridley Scott's black hawk down where you can see from the start where things went wrong (Orlando Bloom falling from the chopper) don't take water we won't be out for long.

While waiting under some trees their position was compromised by an old man and two youths tending their goat herd. One had a walkie talkie on them which suggests that they are Tallyban.

There is a difficult conversation had by the soldiers. 1) release the prisoners and fall back to get picked up, mission aborted. 2) Keep prisoners tied up and fall back, mission aborted. 3) kill the prisoners and continue with the mission.

With their comms down they can't get new orders or advice and so it's the lieutenant that has to make the call. Marky Mark argues for releasing them as they might get eaten by wolves or die in the cold at night. Killing is not an option as it goes against the rules of engagement and could get banged up in Leavenworth Penitentiary as they have arrested others for far less. Ben Foster argues to kill them as he doesn't care about them but does care about his teammates, they could go on to kill a truck load of Marines which he states happened recently.

What would the Tallyban do if in the same position? They would not hesitate to kill them but would that make us as bad as them if we did? Fuck that line of reasoning you need to be bad if yer gonna win against these fuckers. Yer gonna get dirty so do it for the mission.

If Old Knudsen was a civilised soldier with honour he'd stupidly do the right thing, except I'd leave them tied up, they'd get free eventually.

They release the prisoners and mention about how good things happen to good people as they expect a positive karmic reward, elsewhere one of the prisoners is running down the mountain, leaping rocks like Spider man to alert his fellow Tallyban cunts.

Still no communications but they get through to HQ only to be dropped, must be on the O2 network. The Tallyban however can move at supernatural speed through their mountains and have caught up with them. Then a firefight of 60 against 4 takes place and though the seals hit their targets the Tallyban have 50 cal machine guns and RPG's.

Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch and Marky fucking Mark.   

Old Knudsen wasn't taking part in this operation, he has the advantage of sitting at home after having read the movie title but seriously, some of the choices.

After taking a few bullets each they fall back only to find a 40 foot drop with jagged rocks and trees to break their fall .
So what do they do? they decide to fall off the side to get away. After some gnarly hits against some rocks they are barely on their feet again and shooting at the Tallyban.

So let me get this straight, they fall, ripping open their skin and probably breaking some bones to get to a position below the enemy in what could be called a killbox. The enemy has even more of an advantage, even fit and unwounded there was no getting away.
Since that worked out so well they did it again, after taking some more bullets but they accidentally leave poor ol Danny behind on the ridge above them. 

"We gotta go back and get Danny" says the outnumbered guy who can barely stand. Are you sure they aren't Marines?  
Falling into killboxes has to be the dumbest plan ever, the thing is that the only choices they had left was how to die. They were in better shape to fight the Tallyban before they started falling doon hills and becoming better targets for the ragheads.

They were brave and honourable men, it's very easy to make the choice of killing than one of compassion but we've seen what the Tallyban, Al Qaeda and ISIS can do and I'm less likely to want to offer them a chance.
Like the story of the scorpion crossing the river on the back of the horse, the horse told it not to sting or they would both die, during the crossing but the scorpion did it anyway because hey, he's a fucking scorpion.

    
Could I live with myself if I killed unarmed prisoners ? yeah, it would be how my fellow brothers saw me afterwards that would be the most difficult and would they tell out of a sense of honour and duty?

Marky Mark whose acting ability failed as he is not Seal material in any shape or form got saved by friendly Afghans who protected him from the Tallyban because he was their guest.

So out of a disaster of an operation that went wrong due to not getting a radio signal and the guys on the ground doing the morally right thing you get to thinking that they should have killed the prisoners and what good is doing the right thing? Though the Afghan villagers did the right thing too so karma is very inconsistent and we tend to only see the bad things that we claim as karma.

Navy Seals getting made drown proof during training. 

Marcus Luttrell who Marky Mark played went on to write the book that the movie was based on. Not a feel good movie though you do come away with a sense of pride and respect for these tough bastards who have searched themselves better than any introspective philosopher and know what they are capable of due to how hard they have pushed themselves.