If I hadn't already known that Irwin Winkler directed Home of the Brave, I would've guessed it was helmed by someone new to the job with no previous experience. That's how astonishingly amateurish this movie feels. It's somewhat of an updated Iraq War version of The Best Years of Our Lives (complete with its own amputee), about returning soldiers who don't fit back into civil society, but everything about this production feels like a cheap TV movie.

Perhaps most laughable is the movie's script, which includes plenty of awkward dialogue that tries to shoehorn in topical bits, from a conversation between two vets who complain in straight rehearsal line-reading style that no one at home understands them, to a veteran father chastising his teenage son, who is unsympathetic to the U.S. policy and their soldiers, with the old "I was there!" lecture.

No one comes off untainted here, from the usually reliable Samuel L. Jackson to Jessica Biel, given a challenging role but sadly obstructed by terrible lines and poor direction. The only part of this movie with any punch is its beginning, which features an ambush in an Iraqi city; after that, the film goes to the homefront with good intentions, but, alas, you know what they say about the road to hell and all that.

Home of the Brave is a noble effort that nonetheless results in the kind of movie words like "wallow" were made for; sitting through it is a drag, and frankly you're better off watching this year's documentary The Ground Truth, which covers much of the same subject. (Capsule review)

(Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and rated "R" for war violence and language.)

Review also posted at www.windowtothemovies.com