Good intentions
‘Thank You for Your Service’ has a powerful message
The makers of “Thank You for Your Service” deserve a cinematic medal of honor for getting their film to a big screen.
We’re in an age of sequels to sequels and reboots of reboots, where a well-reviewed movie that makes $400 million worldwide can be written up as a failure. And here’s an unflinching film about military posttraumatic stress disorder, with only a couple of action scenes, getting wide distribution.
The good intentions go a long way, with another solid performance by Miles Teller (they seem to arrive weekly), and a rare nuanced look at the struggle of veterans. Its existence will help people, and bring understanding. But as a piece of cinema, “Thank You” is flawed, with a structure and pacing that dull the viewing experience, even as the message drives through. It’s a great discussion starter, but not a great finished product.
“Thank You for Your Service” is based on New York Times journalist David Finkel’s book by the same name, profiling a Baghdad-based infantry battalion after it returns home. “American Sniper” screenwriter Jason Hall writes and directs, after Steven Spielberg was reportedly attached to an earlier version of the project.
Seemingly stable family man Sgt. Adam Schulman (Teller) leads a group of soldiers attempting to readjust to their suburban Georgia homes, including dedicated soldier Tausolo Aieti (Beulah Koale) and the clearly volatile Will Waller (Joe Cole).
Their post-deployment portrayals are alternately confusing and foreseeable, as past events are teased repeatedly as mysteries, even though it’s pretty clear exactly what happened—and what will happen— to each of these characters.
Hall, who wrote the excellent “American Sniper,” could use more of that film’s narrative balance and clarity. There are almost no scenes in Baghdad, and the portrayals often seem deliberately vague, heightened by a spacious range in acting skill among the leads.
Teller’s character has the longest journey, beginning as a happy husband and dad who makes chocolate chip pancakes for his kids. But even Schulman’s arc falls into a recognizable pattern, with a dash of inexplicable plot turns. A rescue of a trained-to-kill pit bull that becomes a family pet with an infant in the house is particularly distracting.
And yet through this large collection of small filmmaking problems, there are some huge achievements. The maddening process of waiting for Veteran Benefits Administration assistance is captured patiently and with believability by Hall— who commits to gritty details at every turn. (Another credit to the studio: “Thank You for Your Service” has an R rating, probably limiting its financial prospects even more.)
Haley Bennett as Schuman’s wife leads a believably confounded cast of family members waiting back home; Amy Schumer appears briefly as a war widow— by light years the comedian’s most sobering role to date.
And Teller is superb throughout, no more so than a touching and layered scene where he visits one of his combat friends, finding grace in an unlikely place. As he did in “Only the Brave” just seven days ago, Teller displays his knack for conveying humor and humanity at a character’s greatest moment of desperation.
It still hasn’t quite crystalized whether he’s this generation’s John Cusack or Tom Hanks. Either way, we can expect more life-affirming performances for at least the next 15 years.