I was drawn to The Lucky Ones
because it was about soldiers coming home from the Iraq war. What I especially
liked was how light the whole movie came across. It’s not often that you
find a movie about a touchy topic that keeps you laughing.
Colee (Rachel McAdams), TK (Michael
Pena), and Cheaver (Tim Robbins) are all soldiers that one way or the other has
earned some down time stateside from the war. Then due to random chance they
all end up in the same rental car driving across America to Las Vegas. But how
will the trip affect these three strangers?
This is a movie about soldiers
coming home from Iraq but never once is the word Iraq said in the whole movie.
It’s a small thing but I think it is a nice touch to only hear it referred to
as ‘over there’ and other vague references like that. This is also a movie that has a
chance to be very heavy and dark but the director Neil Burger decided to look
at a lighter side of coming home. But
don’t be fooled when I say lighter side. There are bad things that happen in
this movie. You might even say that some of it is downright depressing, but the
way it was all written the sadness blends well with the laughter and you’re
left with a light hearted film. I would also like to complement Burger on the
realistic account of how soldiers were greeted stateside during that time in
the war. About the time this movie came out was when I was finishing a tour in
Iraq myself. The awkward “Thank you” “No thank you” exchanges were captured
very well in this movie. Then there were the overly friendly people that were
willing to give soldiers anything they could possibly want. Both of which I
experienced firsthand. But then Burger also decided to throw in the arguments that
the war brought up between people that weren’t even part of the war in any way.
It’s all just a very realistic portrayal of soldiers coming home. Burger even
captured the three most prominent personalities of the Army. You’ve got Colee
the naive private that knows little about the real world because she went
straight into the Army after high school. Then there’s TK, the sergeant who
thinks he knows everything there is to know about everything. Finally there’s
Cheaver. He’s the soldier who has done his time and feels that he is done with
the Army forever. Watching this movie actually stirs up my memories of coming
home myself and to me that is a sign of a good movie. It’s a movie that
soldiers can relate to and everyone else can enjoy. Who knows maybe even the civilians
of the world can relate to one of the minor characters that the soldiers run
into on their long journey. But the important thing at this point is that you
watch this movie and take that journey with these three soldiers.
If you're not sure if you want to see this for yourself then start with the preview and go from
there.
Come back next time to take a look at the animals of war with
War Horse.
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