Since she has been widowed as her soldier husband fell in battle, she
has raised Johnny with her father, an army man himself. And of course,
Johnny joined the Navy and was ultimately deployed to Iraq. Since then,
she has been worried sick about her son, especially with all these reports
about terrorist attacks coming out of the country. And her father's
insistance that she should be proud should Johnny lose his life for his
country doesn't make things any better - especially since she doesn't
understand the whole concept of war and how in today's society it should
still be a necessity. Then Johnny comes home a broken man, both on the
outside and within, and things are spiraling downwards from there ... Sure,
this film tackles an interesting subject - the necessity of war in our "civilized" world - and makes some good arguments without being overly biased. And it looks good for sure. Then again, the acting's at best so-so, the dialogue's at time painfully stilted and only tries to hammer home its message, and the
score follows clichés just a bit too closely to not be considered cheesy.
That's not to say the film's a complete trainwreck, but for all the
ambition behind it, it falls a bit too short of its promise.
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