Ill-Informed Gadfly

Read “Doonesbury”; avoid this drivel. For the past 2 1/2 years, Garry Trudeau has, with grit, lucidity and authenticity, chronicled the difficulties confronted by soldiers wounded while fighting in Iraq. The story of B.D., the longtime Army reservist who lost a leg outside Fallujah, has provided comics readers with astonishing insights about the physical and psychic scars of combat. Somehow, Trudeau manages to keep the B.D. episodes funny — a testament to the depth and breadth of human experience. (If you don’t believe me or aren’t familiar with the strips, read Gene Weingarten’s exemplary profile of Trudeau from The Washington Post Magazine.)

Irwin Winkler doesn’t allow any humor into “Home of the Brave.” He doesn’t want you to forget for a second how serious his movie is. This strategy backfires, of course, since screenwriter Mark Friedman supplies some legendary forehead-slapping groaners. My favorite, spoken by the estranged boyfriend of a female soldier (Jessica Biel) who lost her right hand: “I guess you only need one good hand to push people away.” Forget how lame this is; it’s not even accurate! To have one good hand, you need one bad hand; she has one hand!

“Home of the Brave” is continually straining credulity, in ways large and small. Biel comes home from Walter Reed Army Medical Center after one month, already wearing a prosthesis (she heals and rehabs so fast, apparently, that Wolverine would be jealous), and her family meets her at the airport. Um, they never went to visit her? Do they hate her? I wondered that a lot whenever the soldiers interacted with their relatives. The transition back to life at home is difficult enough when everyone you know isn’t a total asshole or an incompetent boob, but that’s what Winkler and Friedman inflict on their wounded warriors. It’s insulting, both to the steadfast fathers, mothers, husbands and wives of our fighting men and women, and to the intelligence of the audience.

After an hour and a half or so of accumulated misery, Winkler decides his Iraq veterans have been through enough and ties up their stories in neat little bows — well, except for Jamal Atkins (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), whom he callously kills off, courtesy of the most idiotic police hostage team ever shown on film. Remember what I said earlier about assholes and incompetent boobs? They’re behind the cameras, too.