Tommy (Brian
Presley), Vanessa (Jessica Biel), Jamal (Curtis “50
Cent” Jackson),
Jordan (Chad Michael Murray) and Dr. Will Marsh (Samuel L. Jackson) are
soldiers in Iraq
who have
just been informed they will be able to go home to Spokane,
Washington
in two weeks. However,
in one of their
last missions, they get caught in an ambush, and the results change
their lives
forever as they return home haunted by the experience, and forced to
deal with
their emotional and physical injuries.
Will they be
able to overcome it all and live normal lives again?
Home of the
Brave is a movie with its heart in the right place, but it
doesn’t pack the
emotional wallop one might expect because of the filmmaking. Director Irwin Winkler
makes the movie in a
very old fashioned way that doesn’t connect with audiences of
today, no matter
how powerful the subject and story.
It’s
a clunky movie lacking subtlety, and full of bad dialogue from writer
Mark
Friedman that tries too hard to get its point across.
Jackson is fine,
but I thought he was a bit over the top in his portrayal of an
alcoholic guy,
until I was walking around downtown DC (where I live) and noticed a
drunk
alcoholic guy stumbling around on the street and kind of muttering to
himself,
then yelling at the wind. As
soon as I
saw the guy, I thought, “Damn, he’s acting just
like Samuel L. Jackson in Home of the
Brave,” and that is when I knew Jackson
nailed it after some serious studying and possible method acting
training.
The rest of Home of the
Brave is hit or miss. Presley
is fine
and ends up being the lead in the movie, but the 50 Cent story gets
lost and
minimized so much it is not needed.
Then, poor Jessica Biel has that look in her eyes
of, “I hope I get to
put on a bikini soon because this is not going well.” Her acting is stiff and
unreal. She
doesn’t deliver her lines with emotion
that is believable and ends up forcing everything in a story that
should be the
most poignant.
Winkler and
Friedman provide a closing monologue that goes on forever and tries to
make a statement
we already get from watching the movie, so we don’t need to
be pounded over the
head with it, but that’s what Winkler does throughout the
movie, so it
shouldn’t be a surprise.
1
½ Waffles (Out of 4)
Home of
the Brave is
rated R for war violence and
language.
Copyright
2007 - WaffleMovies.com
