
The day after they get the word they'll go home in two weeks, a group of soldiers from Spokane are ambushed in an Iraqi city. Back stateside we follow four of them - a surgeon who saw too much, a teacher who's a single mom and who lost a hand in the ambush, an infantry man whose best friend died that day, and a soldier who keeps reliving the moment he killed a civilian woman. Each of the four has come home changed, each feels dislocation. Group therapy, V.A. services, halting... (Full plot summary below)
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The day after they get the word they'll go home in two weeks, a group of soldiers from Spokane are ambushed in an Iraqi city. Back stateside we follow four of them - a surgeon who saw too much, a teacher who's a single mom and who lost a hand in the ambush, an infantry man whose best friend died that day, and a soldier who keeps reliving the moment he killed a civilian woman. Each of the four has come home changed, each feels dislocation. Group therapy, V.A. services, halting gestures from family and colleagues, and regular flashbacks keep the war front and center in their minds. They're angry, touchy, and explosive: can a warrior find peace back home?
Leave your thoughts about Home of the Brave.
| Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternIf there's a way to do justice to the story of American troops coming home from Iraq, Home of the Brave hasn't found it. |
| Greenwich Village GazetteEric LurioDr, Will Marsh (Samuel L. Jackson) has to reintegrate with a family that no longer really understands him. The problem with the film is, while Winkler and writer Mark Friedman try, we can't really understand either. |
| Reel.comJim Hemphill[Director] Winkler clearly loves these characters, and if he sometimes pushes too hard in his effort to make the audience share his affection it's forgivable under the circumstances. |
| Flick FilosopherMaryAnn JohansonSure, it's earnest -- sure, it's melodramatic. Yup, it's just barely this side of being a made-for-Lifetime TV soaper. But there's a mesmerizing power to this little film that comes from its sheer un-told-ness, from its right-now immediacy. |
| Arizona Daily StarPhil VillarrealThis is morose, head-shaking stuff, and director Irwin Winkler (Life as a House, De-Lovely) isn't one to ease up on the 'ol emotional manipulation button. |
| NewsdayGene SeymourJust because there's nothing new to see here doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing worth seeing. |
| Los Angeles Daily NewsBob StraussThe first major feature film about the Iraq War, Home of the Brave deserves a pass because it ain't half bad and, well, it's the first feature about the Iraq War. |
| ColeSmithey.comCole SmitheyThe war in Iraq gets a lathery soft soap treatment in producer-cum-director Irwin Winkler's distortion of emotions and realities associated with a group of returning soldiers. |
| Salon.comAndrew O'HehirHome of the Brave isn't exactly a subtle or a delicate picture -- it's an old-fashioned Hollywood movie, at least in tone, that's being released like an indie -- but it has some terrific acting and comes straight from the heart. |
| WBAI RadioPrairie MillerMissed opportunity for some cutting irony on behalf of indigenous people who have always been the victims in one way or another, of dubious celebrations like Thanksgiving, the laborers are instead merely a dramatic device - wallpaper really. |