First Hit: A very well done film on a relevant topic with some very fine acting.
Vietnam War films started arriving years after the conflict ended.
Today the film industry; I think spurred on by the advent of digital media, is moving faster to put relevant topics in front of us now.
In this case the Iraq War is far from over and this film, based on a true story, shares a one downside of this war. We only meet the subject through pieced together video clips, some dialog about him and one scene when he calls home from Iraq.
His father played by Tommy Lee Jones is a veteran of the Army and war and does an amazing (Oscar consideration) performance of reigned in anger and sadness as he pursues the death of his second son.
As a former MP and investigator he prods the civilian police led by Charlize Theron into really learning what actually happened to his boy. Susan Sarandon plays the mother and wife and gives a picture perfect performance of a mother who has lost her only two sons to the Army life. You can feel life empty out of her.
Although the film uses the death of their son as the subject of the film, the real aim of this film is to introduce people to a side of the war they are not use to seeing. It is a side that I know existed in Vietnam and appears to have expanded in the Iraq war.
The abuses and tactics used are killing us in more than one way. Our media makes attempts to recount these stories, but what it isn’t fleshing out is the effect on our young soldiers.
This film helps us to understand what happens to them (us) when life becomes more expendable. Don’t for a minute believe that the confession you listen to at the end of the film is just a Hollywood script, it isn’t. How do I know? I saw people act this way in Vietnam.
Overall: Paul Haggis directed another excellent film sharing a view of life not always seen or understood.