Kate is a single mother whose son, Casey, is about to be deployed to the current War in Iraq. (We assume it’s the current war, as we’re given no reason to believe it’s another war.) Kate remembers her son as a sweet little boy and is absolutely convinced that he will be killed if he goes to the war. As such, she tries to get a number of the family friends to talk him into deserting. Failing to find anyone who will talk to him, she goes to her ex-husband, Ed, to see if he will talk to his son. Despite the fact that the Ed hates Kate, he is willing to try to talk Casey out of going to the certain death the war represents.
After a strained discussion with Casey over coffee the next morning, Ed discovers that he’s been out of his son’s life too long for Casey to listen to what he has to say. He is determined to live up to his agreement.
Since Casey won’t choose to desert, Kate hatches a plan to remove his ability to choose forcefully. If successful, Casey won’t be able to be shipped out to fight in the war.
Content
The acting in this film is pretty believable, with good performances throughout. The only issue in this regard is the fact that the character of Kate is often on the edge of being unbelievably dramatic. This could be alleviated by some additional character exploration that makes us understand why Kate is so certain that her child will be killed in this war. This point leads us into the weakest area of the film.
The area of this film that needs the most work is the actual story itself. Right now we’re treated to a story that’s very heavy handed in its anti-war sentiment with little explanation of what drives any of the characters in the story. We are given flashbacks to know that the mother remembers her son as a little boy, but we don’t know what terrifies her so about this war. She acts as though this is the war that will destroy her son, but we have no reason to believe that she has any supernatural discernment to believe this or that she has ever lost any of her other loved ones in war prior to this. It’s almost as though the character just believes war is wrong and that anyone who participates in war will die. Additionally, all the supporting actors in the movie uphold this belief as well, from Ed to Casey’s friends. This makes the piece feel like anti-war propaganda, rather than a serious exploration of a young man going off to war.
This is all the more noticeable because, if this is indeed about the current war, then these sentiments are wildly disproportionate to the actual fatalities of this war. In four years of war, we’ve lost fewer than 3,800 men and women, which is less than 10% of the American service men who lost their lives in the first four years of the Vietnam War. My brother-in-law is currently serving in Iraq and, truthfully, he has a greater statistical probability of dying in a car crash when he’s home on leave than he does of dying in war over there. As such, we really need to know what the special circumstances that would endanger Casey’s life specifically in this war, or we need to know that this is some future war that’s much more deadly to American troops than the one we’re currently in.
Now, just as important as why the mother, father, and all the friends of Casey believe he will die in this war is the motivation of Casey to enlist in the first place. We’re given no insight into why he decided to enlist, other than that he’s young and believes that, as he tritely puts it, “a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.” He makes some vague allusions to being able to help his mom out more because of it, but considering how much she hates war and the military, this seems highly illogical. For us to care about the story, we must understand why he has made the choice to go to war and what terrifies all of those around him about this particular war.
