Thank You for Your Service review – American Sniper writer fires blanks

                From war to war, only the proper nouns change. Boys with no idea what they’re in for, barely past schooling age, still get seduced by the promise of military camaraderie and the sense of purpose it affords. The harsh reality of combat still grinds the spirit right out of them – sometimes gradually over a span of months, sometimes in the course of five harrowing minutes – until only a hollow shell remains. And they still bring the battle home with them, forced to reintegrate into a society that doesn’t know what to do with them, and isn’t particularly concerned with figuring that out. These emotional processes haven’t evolved much since humankind first got organized about killing itself, and even more regrettably, neither has the government’s response.

Jason Hall’s directorial debut Thank You For Your Service doesn’t suss out any truths not already covered by such forebears as All Quiet on the Western Front and The Best Years of Our Lives. To cite a more recent example, Hall trains his focus on three men not unlike Chris Kyle, the subject of American Sniper (which Hall scripted). That film grew to an unlikely hit for its political charge, daring the audience to pick a side in the most polarizing American overseas conflict since Vietnam. It set itself apart from the herd through specificity, passing judgment not just on capital-W War, but that war. His latest effort, conversely, loses impact by drifting away from its time and place. Hall spends 100 minutes observing the same deleterious symptoms of military service, and never once pauses to consider their shifting causes.

                With a lack of detail rooting them to their cultural moment, the challenges faced by soldiers Adam, Tausolo and Will (Miles Teller, Beulah Koale and Joe Cole, respectively) end up as interchangeable and disposable as the army considers the men themselves to be. The trio of field brothers get sent back to the States following a bloody shootout with unseen insurgent forces, toting with them souvenirs of PTSD, survivor’s guilt and general mental infirmity. Fate deals them individual turbulences upon what they had assumed would be a triumphant return: Adam’s unprepared for the demands of fatherhood, Solo is so hard up for money that he falls in with a local gang (the least-believably-written bit in a film riddled with vague approximations of real life) and Will’s greeted by an empty home and a traitorous fiancee. The men all face their tribulations the same way, just as countless have before them – with silence and repression.

               Of course, all they’ve got to do is open up and accept the systems of support at their disposal, but that much is easier said than done. Adam’s relationship with wife Saskia (The Girl on the Train star Haley Bennett) dominates most of the run time, as she continually pounds on the sealed door to her husband’s hardened heart. Teller’s figured out how to project a closed-off demeanor without coming off as dim, a hurdle many fellow actors have yet to clear, and Bennett still acts circles around him as his long-suffering spouse. Hers might just be the more compelling internal struggle; it’s her responsibility to support Adam during this trying time, but as an essentially single mother realizing the man she fell in love with may be irrevocably altered, she’s got to shoulder her own pain as well. The ladies generally get more to gnaw on than their male co-stars; even Amy Schumer comes through in the clutch as a widow learning to let go of her anger while holding on to her grief.

Hall identifies one fresh war-picture adversary in the elaborate bureaucracy seemingly set up to distance veterans from the benefits they are owed. Solo stands out as the most mentally rattled of the three, short-term memories slipping right through his mind’s grasp, and his every effort to help himself gets stonewalled by an unfeeling and overtaxed system. Veterans must use days that would otherwise be spent hunting for scarce jobs waiting in lines that lead them to other lines, only to discover that their embarrassingly poor medical plans won’t kick in for another six to nine months. If, that is, the arbitrary policy codes dictate that a given soldier is indeed eligible for care, which can grow into an entire ordeal all its own. But, again, Hall’s got no interest in pointing fingers at the parties responsible for this lamentable system. Unfeeling and unchangeable, the paperwork might as well be weather in his estimation.

                     Hall’s marching in lockstep with a lengthy platoon of directors who have already blazed this same path through enemy territory. And though he’s got some upstanding troops at his disposal, his plan of attack lacks that crucial unexpected element that can take an opposing battalion – or an audience – off guard. War is hell, it’s been said. We should be able to feel the heat.

Note: Thank You for Your Service is released in US cinemas on 27 October and in the UK at a later date

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