Home of The Brave
By Cory Peynado, Blockbuster.co.uk

Irwin Winkler delivers a spellbinding account of life after the Iraq War with the new action drama Home of The Brave. With a great cast including Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci and Jessica Biel we already know the performances are going to be strong but in this time of frequent miss-firing post-war movie attempts, just how well does this one square off against the rest?

Well the entire film was shot in high definition video as opposed to film, which gives it a unique look and texture. This is especially effective during a section at the beginning of the film, which opens on our characters as soldiers in Iraq. The film starts off with the main characters involved in a deadly ambush as Marines on a humanitarian mission, with some of them dying.

Those that make it out are physically injured or mentally scarred. Upon their return back home to Washington, they find adjusting back into their former lives to be nearly impossible. Samuel L. Jackson is a surgeon who becomes an abusive alcoholic, with a son who doesn't respect his service in the military, a wife who feels estranged by his emotional withdrawal, and a career that is going downhill now that he's drinking and suffering from insomnia.

Jessica Biel is a soldier who lost her hand due to an explosion, feeling ugly and unable to communicate openly with anyone she once knew without lashing out. Brian Presley ("Port Charles", "General Hospital") suffers from the inability to focus on any particular job, haunted by the memories of not being able to save his best friend during the altercation.

The government prescribes medication and treatment, but little of it seems to help in adjusting back to normalcy, in a world that is full of petty issues and the inability to see the war as something noble, and the participants are ignored.

Despite the film itself having nothing new to offer in the way of events, it does try very hard to remain genuine in its sentiment. The characters make a believable effort to show some of the real effects that war can have on people. Compared to some of the recent war movies this certainly holds it’s own and Director Irwin Winkler does seem to keep the drama flowing consistently.

I’d recommended this to fans of Sam Jackson, as he is the one who steals the show here. Making a film on a war that is still going on today has to be done properly and there’s always an air of authenticity to the roles that he plays. Well worth a watch.

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