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Created Jun 22, 2010 07:58PM PST • Edited Jul 17, 2016 02:48AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Pretty Bad 1.5

   Anger and pity suffuse this superficially sympathetic portrait of the US Army’s casualty notification service. GIs are uniformly depicted as damaged, deluded or destructive: those uninjured as much as the wounded. Families of the fallen are depicted as unsupportive of their loved one’s enlistment decision, or as estranged from them, or otherwise in a dysfunctional relationship with their now dead soldier.

   Sadly, this cynicism passes for patriotism. It’s not surprising that Hollywood would make such a condescending movie or that antiwar extremist Woody Harrelson would star in it. The entertainment-industrial complex is reluctant to treat US soldiers as ethically, emotionally and intellectually upright. The one Iraq War movie that broke the mold – The Hurt Locker – was also the only one to be embraced by the country.

   The handling of Army casualties from Iraq is much better depicted in HBO’s Taking Chance, a true story. Watch that instead of this crass agitprop.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Woody can act. It’s the thinking that gets him in trouble.

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

   Woody was great, Ben Foster was good.

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Pretty Awful 0.5

    While technically competent, the film’s arrogance was awful.

11. Direction Awful 0.0

12. Play Awful 0.0

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

14. Visuals OK 2.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.0

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Fierce 1.7

19. Rudeness Profane 2.7

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    The soldiers and Marines I know are balanced and sound, more so than many people one meets in the general population, in my experience. Are others psychologically wounded? Of course. War too often has that effect on veterans. That doesn’t excuse the savage cynicism of The Messenger.

    A good primer for how our service members think and feel – in their own words – can be found in the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2006 book Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families. Hundreds of letters, poems and stories are collected from a diverse group of men and women, those wearing the uniform and their families, depicting soundness of mind in the face of great challenge and responsibility.

    To pity them is to not honor them. To respect them is. To revere them is optional, though it’s hard to identify another self-selected cohort more deserving.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.7

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0