Lone Survivor

Some of the battle scenes in the Afghani woods are taut and well-directed, but the before and after were eye-rollingly histrionic. To lend some credibility to this “true” story, Peter Berg and company begin with a lengthy montage featuring real navy seals and the unreasonable physical training they must endure to be our heroes and defend the country. Then, there’s about 20 minutes of Friday Night Lights, i.e. witty banter and light-heartedness mixed with macho introspection so that we’ll sympathize with the soldiers once they start falling off of cliffs. The third act is all made-up and fictionalized, which is too bad because it sure was boring. Like I said, the firefights were impressive, but the rest of this feels like phony-baloney.  (The Navy Seal movie to see is Captain Phillips. )