How to be a Total Ass at the Lone Survivor Movie

This is not a movie review, but a guide. Play along and you too can be a total ass, mocked and hated by the theater audience.

Step 1: Preparation
Drink two very large cups of coffee about an hour before the movie.

Step 2: Hydration
Arrive at the theater ten minutes after its scheduled start time. Purchase a large beverage of your choice and enjoy it during the show.

Step 3: Frustration
As the battle scenes really take off, realize that the two coffees and the large theater beverage have decided they’ve visited your kidneys and over-stayed their welcome in your bladder. Know, however, that because you arrived late you had to sit in the very top row of a stadium-seat theater: the exit is down a long flight of stairs. This step is critical: sit and wait.

Step 4: Perspiration
Really work up a panic sweat as you realize the movie is two hours long and you still have half an hour to go. You’re almost ready to be an ass!

Step 5: Walk Out
When you think the movie ends because the credits start to roll, get up and walk down the stairs. Your experience may vary. Because I can’t go down stairs very well due to an injury, my walk was slow and one stair at a time. Rather than the entire theater jumping up to join me in a mass exodus, everyone stayed in their seats. I realized about four rows down that they were rolling a tribute to all of the real service members involved in the operation depicted by the movie. The entire theater was stone silent except for the sniffling and crying of both men and women. I, of course, could neither return to my seat nor expedite my exit by taking two or three stairs at a time. So I plodded along, one stair at a time, praying a silent prayer that I could hold out long enough to make it to the restroom which was on the far side of the mega-plex.

Step 6: Wall of Shame
Having made it to the restroom in the nick of time, all I had to do was wait for my son, whom I knew would be following shortly after the movie ended. Unfortunately, he actually stayed through the entire credit and tribute sequence and then had to wait for the fifteen or twenty rows below him to clear the stairs before he could exit. This, of course, meant I had fifteen to twenty rows of red-eyed, movie-going, flag-waving patriots staring me down as I stood against the wall next to the men’s room. It was uncomfortable to say the least.

So there you have it. I probably could have left my seat at any time during the Marky-Mark action scenes and no one would have said or thought anything about it. But to leave your seat during the memorial tribute? It takes a special kind of total ass to pull off that maneuver.