This review may contain spoilers.
If we pretend this is NOT based on a “true story”, the first part of this, up until they jump down the first cliff, is pretty decent war movie stuff. By this point, most of them have taken some flesh wounds that, I believe, guys like this could fight through.
What I don’t believe you can overcome with mental fortitude and pride in your unit history is falling 20+ feet down an almost vertical, rockstrewn hillside without breaking multiple bones. I’m even more skeptical that a weapon could take that much punishment and still, apparently, work perfectly.
From this point on, then, we’re in almost complete hollywood fantasy land and it’s bad. Saying it’s based on a true story makes it worse.
Apparently, even the “truth” of the base story is VERY sketchy. The size of the enemy force was estimated, by various sources, to be between 8 and 50. That’s a big enough variation that I’m taking double helpings of salt with the rest of the facts.
What does seem undisputed is that, three of the four SEALs were killed in fairly short order by the Taliban, and Marcus did indeed survive because he was protected by local villagers. This outcome does actually make the last 10 minutes surprisingly moving. The fact that Marcus was actually rescued several weeks later, and protected by the villagers for a much longer period than depicted, makes me feel there might be a better version of this story.
Apparently it’s not one that will sell movie tickets, though.
★★½ (contains spoilers)