Thank You for Your Service (2017)

Directed by Jason Hall. Staring Miles Teller, Beulah Koale, Haley Bennett, Scott Haze, Joe Cole, Omar Dorsey, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Erin Darke, Amy Schumer, Brad Beyer. [R]

Serviceable service drama has through-the-roof good intentions, but writer/director Hall, working from a non-fiction book by David Finkel, is unable to carve out any new territory in what is now a well-worn (if still harrowing and relevant) subject. Soldiers returning from the war in Iraq exhibit troubling signs of PTSD as they try—and often fail—to readjust to civilian life; Teller is haunted by casualties he feels responsible for, Koale descends into drug use and crime, Cole feels betrayed and adrift after discovering that his fiancée has abandoned him, etc. Contrivances mar the pic’s determined stabs at authenticity, with the usual “big” soul-baring encounters of shared grief hitting their dramatic moments with muted emotional impact, but no matter how much it feels like a rerun of a dozen other distressing studies of soldiers abandoned to their physical and psychological trauma back on their home turf, it’s still an intimately-observed account of veterans in a voiceless void. Song played over the end credits (“Freedom Cadence”) was contributed by Bruce Springsteen.

59/100