Kicking off November by Coming home with The Lucky Ones

            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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