This is a very strong trailer. It hits on all the right emotional chords without being too melodramatic. As somber as this is, the ad does a very good job of selling. The music is a nice touch.

The film itself? As is the case with any film about the military over the past forty years, it all depends on how seriously they take it. It is hard to imagine a film maker being irresponsible or clumsily political while dealing with this kind of topic - but would you really be surprised if they were?

This does look good, but it does strike me that with only a few exceptions like The Hurt Locker, film makers can only bring themselves to discuss our soldiers only by focusing on them after they come home, dead or alive (In the Valley of Elah, Home of the Brave, Cost of a Soul, Taking Chance, Grace Is Gone, Stop-Loss, The Lucky Ones, Brothers). No investigation on what our men and women are seeing "over there". No mention of the absolute depraved condition of the Muslim world or the struggling people looking for freedom. No discussion of if what we've been doing all this time has been worth it or why we've been doing it. We just get a line of films showing our men and women in uniform racked with guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, maimed or dead.

By avoiding the war and the moral questions involved in its execution, film makers can continue to undermine our troops. The entertainment industry was comfortable painting our soldiers as barbarians while the Iraq War was at its height. Now, we're seeing that the industry has changed from attacking our men by slander to attacking them with sympathy. What we have is film makers holding up returning soldiers (the same that were maligned for years) and saying to the world "look at what we've done to these poor souls." Instead of identifying them as returning heroes, it seems Hollywood is more satisfied to cite them as pitiable victims.

It is a good thing to talk about our men and women in uniform and discuss the issues they are faced with. It is important that we give them the context they deserve and be very careful about reducing them to mere props.






Screenwriters: Oren Moverman (I'm Not There) and Alessandro Camon (The Bandit K.)
Director: Oren Moverman
Actors: Ben Foster (Hostage), Jena Malone (The Ruins), Woody Harrelson (2012), Steve Buscemi (Armageddon), Eamonn Walker (Cadillac Records) and Samantha Morton (Minority Report)

Labels: Ben Foster, Eamonn Walker, film, Jena Malone, movie trailer, Samantha Morton, Steve Buscemi, Woody Harrelson