The 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. A nasty conflict explodes in the streets of Southwestern Iraq just after a National Guard unit gets word that they are returning home. Traumatized field medic Will Marsh (Samuel L. Jackson) returns to his family in Spokane, Washington where fellow soldiers Vanessa Price (Jessica Biel), Tommy Yates, and Jamal Aiken (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) sort out the challenges of day-to-day life in their hometown with the burden of their physical and mental wounds. The four subplots fail to congeal as the film succumbs to feeble flashback sequences, preachy justifications and a closing voice over narration that sounds like it was read off of a Pentagon press release.
Rated R. 105 mins. (D-) (Zero Stars)
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