Nothing says Christmas quite like a war movie. After
watching the 60 Minutes piece on Marcus Luttrell’s miraculous escape after
being trapped by the Taliban on a mountain in Afghanistan, I felt compelled to
watch Peter Berg’s new film, LONE SURVIVOR.
Here’s my three-act structure breakdown of the story… It’s
not only a great example of dramatically putting the screws to a main
character, but of the hazards of dramatizing a true story.
SPOILER ALERT!
I’m about to reveal the entire plot of the film.
ACT I
ORDINARY WORLD—Over titles, we see a montage of Navy Seal
Training. Man, these guys are
macho and prepared for everything.
We also see they are truly brothers, as they bond through the torturous
training.
Cut to a chopper flying with a terribly wounded guy on
board. We hear voice over that
says, “There’s a storm inside of us.
A drive. A river.” The guy dies in flight and is resuscitated. See how Berg creates a strong dramatic
question for the audience here? We
think, “Wow, what the hell happened to this guy?”
Flashback. 3
Days Earlier.
We meet the main character, Marcus Luttrell (played by Mark
Wahlberg,) and his fellow Seals. He’s totally gung ho to take on a mission.
His pals are Mike Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch), Matt
“Axe” Axelson (Ben Foster) and their Commanding Officer Erik Kristensen (Eric
Bana.) Each one of them has a
personal life and something at stake.
INCITING INCIDENT: They are prepped for their mission. The Seals are told they have to capture Shah, a real
Taliban bad guy who has been responsible for the deaths of at least 20 marines
in the past few weeks. The team will have to climb a mountain to get to his
compound.
Under cover of night, they are flown in and dropped silently
down onto the mountain. In the morning, they find Shah’s encampment. Their radios don’t work that well. It’s tougher than expected. Shah’s got half the village working for
him. Murphy, the officer in charge, says they need to move back and regroup. They do.
ACT I TURNING POINT: Some local shepherds stumble across
them and the Seals are forced to take the shepherds captive. They clearly have ties to the Taliban, and the team knows
that if they let them go, they will run immediately to Shah and report their whereabouts.
They have 3 options.
Let them go, tie them up and try to get off the mountain, or terminate
them.
ACT II
FOLLOW THE TRAJECTORY CREATED BY THE FIRST TURNING
POINT: There’s a huge argument
about what to do. Marcus says they
can’t shoot them, it’s wrong, they’re innocent civilians. “The rules of engagement say we can’t
touch them.” Axe says they have to kill them, otherwise they themselves are
going to die. Marcus says he doesn’t want to be splashed on CNN as the guy who
killed civilians. Murphy reminds them it’s not a
democracy. He says the mission has
been compromised. They’re going to
cut them loose, make for the peak, and call for a chopper to extract them from
the mountain.
Bana, their C.O., tries to contact them, but can’t get
through.
They let the shepherds go.
As the Seals race for the summit of the mountain to radio
for help, the youngest shepherd, a young man who clearly hates Americans, races
for Shah’s camp.
The seals get to the “summit” only to find it’s a false peak
and they can’t radio for help because there’s no reception. They have to hide until night. One Seal
has injured his foot.
Back at home base, Bana is concerned. The team has missed three communication
windows.
The Seals hide in the trees. Murphy goes to do some recon and discovers there are fifty
Taliban in the hills watching them.
He races back and tells his men, “We are about to get contacted.” They prepare to fight.
MIDPOINT: Huge firefight.
Murphy gets wounded, other guys get shot, and they are forced to retreat. A mortar goes off behind them and they
all roll down a hill. They get
shot at again. They retreat behind
a rock, assess their situation and wounds. Danny and Murphy are injured badly. Axe has been shot multiple times
too. Marcus is scared and now
knows he made a mistake in arguing to let the shepherds go. Oh yeah, and even though he doesn’t
know it, his back is broken.
BIG GLOOM (remember, this a series of events) As if it weren’t bad enough, now it
gets worse. They are surrounded
again, shot at, Danny is captured and killed. They are all wrecked and none of their phones work. Murphy
is totally shot up, but knows their only chance for rescue is if he tries to
get to a summit and use the SAT phone.
This means certain death for him, as he’ll have to go out in the
open. But he has to save his
men. He says to Marcus, “Never end
the fight.”
Murphy runs for the summit while Marcus “covers” him with
gunfire, makes the call, and is killed.
Bana gets the message, orders choppers to be sent, but is
told they can’t leave without Apache cover. The Apache helicopters are off base and need to be called
in.
Now, on the mountain, there are only two guys left. Marcus and Axe. Axe doesn’t know that
Murphy has been killed, and Marcus can’t tell him. Axe asks, “Are we dead?” Marcus says, “No, we’re good.”
The helicopters arrive. Foster and Marcus are relieved. Hurray! But this
being the Big Gloom section of the story, the chopper is shot down out of the
sky. All the seals on board die in
a flaming explosion against the mountain.
Axe and Marcus run.
Axe is shot and killed.
The Apaches finally arrive, but Marcus, due to his injuries,
can’t move. When the Apache pilots
can’t see any movement on the mountain, they leave, assuming all of them are
dead.
Marcus is left under a rock, alone. (see how low Berg brings
him?)
ACT II TURNING POINT: The next morning, Marcus fights to
stand up and struggles to find water.
He finds a river, plunges in, but is immediately discovered by a
villager. Freaked out, he holds a
grenade, threatens him. The villager, Gulab (Ali Suliman) says he is not
Taliban and will help him. Marcus,
completely alone and terribly injured, has no choice but to trust him.
ACT III
RACE TO THE CLIMAX:
Marcus is taken to the man’s village, where Gulab and his son take care
of him. The rest of the village is nervous, fears the Taliban will come and
kill them all. Gulab refuses to
put Marcus out and sends someone to the closest U.S. Military Base to tell them
where Marcus is.
The Taliban enter the village and the villagers attack them,
telling the Taliban to leave. The
Taliban say they’ll be back. “For
an American, you will die?”
CLIMAX: The
Taliban come back (don’t they always?) and there’s a huge shootout. Marcus and Gulab and his kid fight the
Taliban. Marcus is about to die,
when the kid gives him a knife and he stabs the guy.
U.S. helicopters arrive and strafe the hell out of the village.
They rescue Marcus. He says thank
you to Gulab and his son.
BRIEF RESOLUTION: Now we’re back to the helicopter shot we started the movie
with. Marcus is injured, being
transported back to the base. He
dies, and then is resuscitated. In voice over, he says, “Part of me died up on
that mountain.” We find out that
the village to which he has been taken has a tradition that they must help whoever
comes their way. And this is what has
saved Marcus.
The end.
Now, there’s plenty to quibble about in the screenplay. For one, the pretentious voiceover. We don’t need it and it’s self-important. We get the themes of the movie purely through the
action. We also see this directorial
overkill in the sections where the key characters (Murphy, Foster) die in super
slow “give me a break” motion.
I also wonder if the stuff that happens in ACT III in the film
(Gulab and his son fighting the Taliban in hand to hand combat), actually happened
in real life. If it didn’t, it’s a
great example of how the filmmakers felt the need to have a rousing three-act
structure climax, despite the truth.
LONE SURVIVOR is a tight, compelling drama about a band of
Navy seals who are dropped on a mountain, but only one gets out alive.
If you like war movies, check it out. The action sequences are great, and
I’ve never seen rolling down a hill look quite so painful or real.
Oh yeah, and Eric Bana is a hunk.