I can’t improve on what David wrote the other day, but here’s my column on Lone Survivor:
A reviewer in The Atlantic worries that movies like Lone Survivor “resemble multi-million dollar recruitment videos — tools of military indoctrination geared toward the young and the impressionable.” There is no doubt that the SEALs are portrayed as noble and heroic, for good reason: They were. But if this is a recruitment film, it isn’t of the “sign up and see the world” variety. The implicit message is that if you become a SEAL, you, too, can be faced with excruciating life-and-death decisions in hostile territory. You, too, can fight a battle while falling down a mountain. You, too, can get shot up and killed.