Home of the Brave 2006

David Germain, Associated Press: This is Hollywood's first big-screen attempt at portraying the plight of the tens of thousands of Americans returning from Iraq. They deserve a deeper, more substantive portrait of their transition back to the homefront, and some day, they'll get it. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: If there's a way to do justice to the story of American troops coming home from Iraq, Home of the Brave hasn't found it. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Home Of The Brave ultimately says ... what? War is tough. That's fair, and so is [director] Winkler's reluctance to engage the politics of this particular war and focus on the soldiers that fight it. Read more

Sam Adams, Los Angeles Times: [Its] mild-mannerness is especially disappointing when compared with such documentaries as The War Tapes and the excellent Home Front, vivid and incisive explorations of post-Iraq anger and disillusionment that have gone largely unseen. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It's a formulaic, overacted piece of work that rarely delves deep. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A Hallmark TV drama about the very antithesis of a Hallmark moment. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Just because there's nothing new to see here doesn't necessarily mean there's nothing worth seeing. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The intentions are good. The actors have been assembled with care, and the production is polished. But everything feels assembled, as if it were put together from blueprints. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: While Mark Friedman's script is as unsubtle as Winkler's direction, their sincerity and the subject's sharp immediacy lend the film a certain power. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Mr. Winkler and Mr. Friedman deserve credit for achieving their objectives without undue bombast or bravado, but rather with a clear-eyed view of an uneasy time in our national life. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: After the action shifts from the deserts of the Middle East to the relative calm of the home front (specifically, Spokane, Washington), it devolves into a morass of melodramatic cliches. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Home of the Brave isn't exactly a subtle or a delicate picture -- it's an old-fashioned Hollywood movie, at least in tone, that's being released like an indie -- but it has some terrific acting and comes straight from the heart. Read more

Stephen Garrett, Time Out: Earnest but lazy, fitfully laughable and insulting, Home of the Brave is cowardly work. Read more

John Anderson, Variety: Obvious, plodding, cloying and politically innocuous. Read more

Nathan Lee, Village Voice: For all its relevance to the state of the nation, Home of the Brave is convinced it's saying something urgent but offers no fresh insight to postwar survival. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: I must say the best thing about the movie is that it's interested in the soldiers, not the self-serving popinjays who seem to think the war is a big fat career-enhancing photo opportunity. The people who got shot at deserve most of the attention. Read more