Lone Survivor

(MA15+) ★★★

Director: Peter Berg.

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, Eric Bana, Yousuf Azami, Ali Suliman.

You don't got a beard, you don't get a gun.

A couple of years ago, real-life Navy Seals took part in the making of action film called Act Of Valour, which the Navy hoped would do for its recruitment levels what Top Gun did for the Air Force in the '80s.

Lone Survivor's first act feels like the Hollywood version of Act Of Valour - a propaganda-ish love letter to the brave (and slightly insane) lads who sign up to be Navy Seals.

After an opening act detailing the disturbing levels trainees are pushed to to become elite soldiers, four interchangeable soldiers (played by Wahlberg, Kitsch, Foster and Hirsch) are sent on a mission in Afghanistan to kill Taliban leader Ahmad Shah (Azami).

But things go terribly wrong. It turns out the title is the massive spoiler you suspect it to be and not just two random words stuck together.

When things do go terribly wrong, Lone Survivor abruptly stops seeming like a challenging enticement for wannabe soldiers and becomes a harrowing and intense hour-long shoot-out that is as relentless as it is brutal.

Ever since Saving Private Ryan, war movies have followed the credo of "stick the audience in the thick of it" and Lone Survivor certainly adheres to that ideal. For 60 terrifying minutes, you are part of a firefight that is genuinely nail-biting and scary.

It will also put most rational people off the idea of ever wanting to become a Navy Seal.

It's a credit to the direction of Peter Berg (earning partial redemption for the massive turkey that was Battleship) and the editing team that the shoot-out that dominates so much of Lone Survivor's running time is so impressive and immersive.

But it also means that other important aspects of moviemaking - characterisation, emotions, and dialogue - fall by the wayside. As a result, an overwrought coda at the end showing the pictures and names of the real-life soldiers of Operation Red Wings fails to strike an empathetic chord. We know nothing about these guys except one of them has to buy his girlfriend a horse for their wedding for some reason ... and I can barely remember which soldier that was, such is their interchangeability.

Surprisingly, these downsides don't ruin the film. The last act is surprising and adds an interesting and unexpected angle to proceedings, somewhat redeeming things, and the cast is quality, adding to the believability and verisimilitude of the whole thing.

Ultimately Lone Survivor will be remembered for its bone-breaking, blood-splattering, white-knuckle skirmish - not for its performances, characters, plot or dialogue. On this level, it works. Add in the last act and a strong sense of reality, and there is more good than bad here.

This is not really a war movie - it's a "battle movie". It's focus is not on the broad themes of why nations go to war or what they're really fighting for or the fallout back home or the long-reaching effects these things have. It just wants to tell the story of what happened on this particular Afghan ridge in 2005, even it never properly introduces us to the men involved.

And as such, Lone Survivor loses the war, but definitely wins the battle.