Alright, I'm going to start back up with my semi "stream of consciousness" reviews as I watch the film, or just whenever I get around to it...unfortunately I can't do this from work (where I do get to watch movies), so I may not talk about all the movies I watch.
First up:
Niel Burger's The Lucky Ones starring Tim Robbins (Mystic River), Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers), and Michael Peña (World Trade Center).
This film is about a trio of soldiers returning from the wars in the Middle East, all three wounded in some way, who find themselves on a cross-country road trip. It's a cross of the "soldiers returning home" genre and the road trip film.
That being said, this is no The Best Years of Our Lives, but then again, what is? It's got your standard road trip gags, a car accident, one of them getting more than they anticipated in a sexual encounter, a bar fight, and dashed expectations. In that, it's pretty standard. Why I think this is an interesting film and one to watch is simply because it tries to merge that service veterans.
It does bring the stories of the soldiers to life, although probably quicker than those stories would happen in real life. Cheaver (Robbins) returns home to suburban St. Louis only to find after a few minutes that his wife wants a divorce and his son needs $20,000 in a matter of weeks or he loses his spot at Standford University. T.K. (Peña) suffered an injury to his "upper thigh" that caused erectile disfunction, a condition he's hesitant to tell his fiancée. Colee (McAdams) is returning her dead boyfriend's (he died saving her in Iraq) guitar to his family.
Its shortcomings are mostly in the road trip and in the things that bring the trio together. The bar fight happens because a snotty college girl makes fun of Colee's service and war injury; and only a heartless b*tch would ask a returning soldier for a divorce five minutes after he gets home. It's a little hard to believe that those would actually happen. But I found the rest of the soldiers' interactions civilians to be true and honest. I recognize not quite being sure what to say when people say "Thank you for your service;" I myself have never been "over there," but I have an idea of what it feels like when people who aren't in the military talk about it and the war. I think that those scenes are well witten, and could be interesting for people unfamiliar with the military to see those scenes. It can be a bit uncomfortable for those who are serving or have served to talk about the war with those who have never been in the military or who don't have anyone close to them who serve. I found the actors pulled those scenes off very well.
It also stumbles towards the end when it gives T.K. second thoughts about going back to the Army once his leave is done. I do wish the story had been a little bit longer and hashed out both Colee's and T.K.'s personal stories a little more; it also should've put them together more...not necessarily in a romantic way (although it seemed there was that aspect, I'm glad they didn't focus on that and make it a romantic dramedy), but shown them growing closer as friends. There was some chemistry there, while we didn't get much of a sense of chemistry with T.K. and his fiancée or why they were together. In fact, we never meet her. His story is the only one we don't even get into at all.
Overall, about 5 or 6/10. On a 5-point scale, it'd have to be a 3; I just couldn't go down to a 2, although 2.5 would be more accurate. It has lots of unfulfilled promise, which is a real shame; this could have been the first GREAT movie to come from the Middle East wars. Still though, it's probably one of the better films to deal with the Iraq war.
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