Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor - Dir. Peter Berg (2013)

Operation Red Wing was a 2005 military operation in which a four man SEAL team stationed in Afghanistan was tasked with eliminating Ahmad Shah, a high-level Taliban target. The mission went tragically awry and only Marcus Luttrell survived to tell the tale. Another sixteen troops were killed when their helicopter was shot down during an attempted rescue. Along with novelist Patrick Robinson, Luttrell co-authored Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10, his account of the undertaking, which was quickly optioned by writer/director/producer Peter Berg, who was coming off the box office flop of Battleship.

In Lone Survivor, Luttrell, a hospital corpsman, is assigned the mission along with team leader Lt. Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), communications specialist Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch), and sniper Matthew Axelson (Ben Foster). The SEALs are dropped into the mountainous Hindu Kush region, but are eventually spotted by an elderly goat herder and two young boys. The SEALs choose to release them, despite knowing the civilians will alert Taliban forces to their presence. Sure enough, they are on the run, severely outnumbered and outgunned.

With a title like Lone Survivor, there's little doubt left to the ending, even if you aren't familiar with the real-life events. However, it's the journey that's important and Lone Survivor takes us on one harrowing ride. The film begins innocuously enough as the protagonists enjoy their down time by discussing wedding gifts, kitchen tiles, and hazing the new guy. Once the action begins, it almost never lets up as the movie becomes an extended firefight.

Berg is no stranger to kinetic action as seen in 2007's The Kingdom, which helped him earn credibility with Luttrell. Berg drops you right into the thick of things without relying heavily on the shaky cam that so many American directors employ. Yes, there are handheld shots, but not enough to make you confused as to what's happening on screen. He makes you feel every bone breaking hit when the SEALs tumble down a mountainside. And Berg doesn't shy away from the gorier bits as a bullet rips through a man's body in slow motion.

The acting is on point, particularly the always intense Ben Foster. The leads are called upon to convey distinct personalities with very little material. Berg doesn't attempt to shoehorn in back stories for each character; he's only interested in the here and now.

This being a Hollywood production, Lone Survivor does embellish the events for dramatic purposes. The film sees Luttrell's unit facing an enemy force of over a hundred while military reports list the number as anywhere from a dozen to the thirties. While Luttrell found safe harbor in a Pashtun village, the climatic shootout against Shah and his men never happened.

Lone Survivor is a realistic and brutal portrayal of war. It's gripping and action-packed while remaining respectful to those who lived and died during the actual events.

Rating: *** (*****)

Savages

Savages - Dir. Oliver Stone (2012)

There are two kinds of Oliver Stone movies. There are the politically charged dramas like JFK and Platoon and the adrenaline fueled Tony Scott-style pictures like Natural Born Killers and U-Turn. Savages falls squarely into the latter category though it touches on the hot button topics of the war on drugs.

The lead character is O (Blake Lively), short for Ophelia, a blonde bombshell living in the idyllic Southern California community of Laguna Beach. With echoes of Sunset Boulevard, O ominously proclaims in the opening narration that just because she's telling the story doesn't mean she's alive at the end. O is in the middle of an unconventional love triangle between Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson). Chon is a war veteran who returned home from Afghanistan with a particularly potent strain of marijuana. Ben is the hippy-dippy type. He took those seeds and grew them into a lucrative network and uses the profits to build solar-powered schools in Third World nations.

Ben is the brains and Chon is the brawn, which will be called upon when their operation piques the interest of a Mexican drug cartel headed by Elena Sanchez (Salma Hayek). The cartel is looking to absorb Ben and Chon's entire network on their own terms, no negotiations. To show how serious they are, they make sure to send the boys a grisly video of decapitated heads. Ben and Chon still turn down their offer leading Elena to order the abduction of O at the hands of her brutal enforcer Lado (Benicio del Toro). Serving as the monkey wrench in everyone's plans is John Travolta as Dennis, a crooked DEA agent willing to deal with any side as long as he profits.

Savages is a sun-drenched clash between the privileged paradise of Orange County with the crime and violence that has plagued Mexico for years. There's the execution of a cocaine lawyer in his ultra-modern, suburban home and the torture of another man whose eyeball sickeningly dangles from the socket.

The segments following the ménage a trois work because the parts were cast well though Blake Lively doesn't have the emotional weight to handle some of the film's deeper moments. In her defense, it's doubtful any actress could credibly spout lines like, "I have orgasms. He has 'wargasms.'" 2012 should have been Taylor Kitsch's breakout year, but it didn't turn out that way following the bombing of John Carter and Battleship. While Savages did lukewarm business, it did give Kitsch his best role of all his recent pictures. He and Aaron Johnson breathe life into their on-screen friendship, making it feel lived in and believable. Johnson's role as Ben is a marked difference from the nerdy fanboy in Kick-Ass.

Yet, the more interesting moments are when the film follows the lives of the drug cartel. Benicio del Toro's Lado is a frightening figure that belies his bushy mustache and odd pompadour mullet. He and his men slip in and out of wealthy neighborhoods disguised as gardeners. Just as O and her boys view the cartel as savages, Lado sees them the same way due to their three-way relationship and their American sense of entitlement. Despite being a merciless executioner, he's more offended that his sons are lazy and his daughter has become a glorified valley girl. As for Elena, she assumed control following the murders of her husband and sons. She has a daughter who wants little to do with her ("She is ashamed of me and I am proud of her for it."). It's no wonder that Elena forges an unlikely maternal bond with O whose own mother (Uma Thurman in a role excised from the final cut) is off globe-trotting with her latest husband. Hayek is gorgeous and plays the role as if she stepped right out of a Telemundo soap opera.

Savages is a handsomely shot, but wildly uneven action-thriller. Old hands like Travolta, Hayek, and Benicio del Toro do most of the heavy lifting through a script bustling with tangled subplots until the movie fizzles out after a trick ending.

Rating: ** (*****)

Milk

Milk - Dir. Gus Van Sant (2008)

"My name is Harvey Milk and I want to recruit you."

Auteur Gus Van Sant has bounced back and forth from the arthouse to the multiplex. He’s probably best known by mainstream audiences for the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting or the ill-conceived shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. He’s spent the last several years making films of a more avant-garde nature (Elephant, Gerry, Paranoid Park). Now, Van Sant has found some middle ground with his biopic of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay individual elected to public office. Milk is a rather conventional film that transcends its by-the-numbers narrative trappings thanks to an exceptional cast led by Sean Penn.

Penn might be a humorless killjoy in real life, but he’s an amazing actor. Here, he throws himself into the role. He’s created a three-dimensional character without simply relying on the mannered impersonation that a less-talented actor would have given. Dustin Lance Black’s script doesn’t bother to get into Harvey Milk’s childhood or family background. He wisely skips ahead to Milk at 40 who has a mid-life crisis or revelation. Milk transforms from a Wall Street banker and Goldwater Republican to a long-haired hippie. Moving to SF, he opens a camera shop and becomes known as the Mayor of Castro Street. Though Milk gains unlikely supporters in the teamsters union, he ultimately loses his initial three campaigns before becoming city supervisor. Milk shrewdly finds a way to relate to a wide demographic of voters (not just the gay community) by promising to clean up dog poop. Throughout all this, Penn captures the real Milk’s charm, disarming wit, and determination (as evidenced in the Oscar-winning documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk).

Josh Brolin gives yet another amazing performance as fellow supervisor Dan White who would go on to assassinate both Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Brolin is perfect as the straight-laced White, an ex-cop and firefighter. He’s a man not unsettled by Milk’s sexuality, but by Milk’s sudden rise in power and notoriety, a rise that should have been his. And there might have been a little more to it as Milk speculated, "He might be one of us."

Milk’s release couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. Milk organized gay activists against Prop 6 which called for the firing of all gay teachers in the public school system as well as their supporters. The measure was championed by singer Anita Bryant (who appears only in archival footage) and played upon the fears for their children’s safety. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Rating: *** 1/2

Speed Racer

Speed Racer - Dirs. The Wachowski Brothers (2008)

A cinematic sugar rush that's more eye sore than eye candy.

Like playing Mario Kart after snorting a line of pixie sticks and mainlining Jolt Cola.