Soldiers come home in a ‘crash landing’
Thank You for Your Service K (out of 4) Starring Miles Teller, Beulah Koale, Joe Cole, Scott Haze, Haley Bennett and Keisha Castle-Hughes. Written and directed by Jason Hall. Opens Friday at GTA theatres. 150 minutes. 14A
Ironically titled Thank You for Your Service begins with a note that it is “inspired by a true story” of Iraq War veterans struggling to find peace at home after unleashing hell abroad.
Yet inspiration seems somewhat lacking in a story that feels all too familiar and aimed more at lighting a fire under tight-fisted U.S. politicians than cinema audiences.
Authenticity isn’t the issue, since the film has that to spare. Based on a 2013 nonfiction book by war correspondent David Finkel, the story is about the 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad during the 2007-08 troop surge and the post-traumatic stress disorder many had to deal with upon their return stateside.
Jason Hall, who wrote the screenplay, is making his directorial debut. Hall penned the 2015 Clint Eastwood film American Sniper, which waved the flag for a nation that would soon be held hostage to Donald Trump’s triumphalist and simplistic views about war, among other things.
Hall is considerably less jingoistic here, both as director and writer, as he seeks to compassionately depict the reality of what one soldier describes as the “crash landing” of returning to home, family and the civilian life.
Miles Teller is the central figure as Sgt. Adam Schumann, a decorated hero known for his uncanny ability to spot the enemy IEDs that leave many soldiers dead or in pieces. The one occasion when his judgment and instinct failed him leads to the ambush observed in the tense opening moments, as Schumann and his loyal men — Solo Aieti (Beulah Koale), Will Waller (Joe Cole) and Michael Adam Emory (Scott Haze) — come under heavy sniper fire with serious casualties resulting.
Schumann’s well-intended actions that day continue to haunt him, even after he returns to the U.S. to a warm greeting from his wife Saskia (Haley Bennett) and their young children.
Schumann discovers, as soldiers have throughout time — and through superior Hollywood films such as Coming Home and Born on the Fourth of July — that you can leave a war, but the war never really leaves.
He considers himself lucky, however, and even insists he’s “perfect” because he made it home from Iraq without any missing limbs.
The others weren’t quite so lucky. Take the case of Solo, a taciturn American Samoan and one of the unlucky ones. He now suffers major memory issues after enduring multiple explosions during his military patrols.
A man who wears his heart on his sleeve, Solo believes the army saved him from a life of crime on the streets of America, even though it messed up his brain. He wants to return to Iraq ASAP, even though his wife Alea (Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider) is eager to have a baby.
“My s--t’s scrambled,” he tells buddy Schumann. “I don’t belong here.”
Much of the film details the efforts of Schumann and his band of broth-
Much of the film details the efforts of Sgt. Schumann and his band of brothers to get treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
ers to get treatment for PTSD. Winding through the bureaucratic jungle to obtain government-funded aid leaves them dispirited and angry, especially after a former commanding officer tells them to fake stoicism lest they hurt the morale of other damaged veterans.
A big part of the problem is they can’t admit they have a problem. These guys are so close, they can dance goofily together to “What Is Love” playing on a jukebox in a bar, not caring a whit about what the other patrons think. But they’re unable to speak to their wives about the horrors they’ve witnessed, a situation Hall dramatizes in a scene at a raceway by having speeding cars almost drown out his words as Schu- mann attempts to explain his mental torment to his wife.
Hall’s direction and script are efficient and to the point. The actors all acquit themselves well, but always with a grim sense of reality that the film seeks to really drive home.
There are no potential award nominees here, with the exception of New Zealand-born Koale. His screen tour of duty as the memory-impaired Solo is steeped in the pain and bewilderment of a man who can’t understand why the country whose flag he proudly fought under doesn’t seem to want to help him.
His face poignantly illustrates the sense of betrayal of men who feel their country has used them up and thrown them away.