In Country

Based on Bobbie Ann Mason's bestselling novel, this Vietnam War movie at home seemed to have a lot going for it, with the excellent Emily Lloyd (Wish You Were Here, Cookie) and Bruce Willis (Moonlighting, Die Hard) in starring roles. Lloyd plays Samantha, an 18-year-old modern Southern girl, who's father was killed in Vietnam before she was born. Living with her Uncle Emmett (Willis), a withdrawn vet, Sam suddenly decides she wants to know more about her father and the war in general. Most of the film is given over to Samantha querying the veteran friends of Emmett (who all respond with predictable and tiresome clichés), and working on Emmett to open up. It is a meandering, pointless journey that sounds a fake note from beginning to end. (The opening sequence shows a scene from the Vietnam jungle which looks exactly like the Louisiana bayou). The film finally gets some spark in the prolonged ending which has Sam, Emmett, and Sam's grandmother making the trek to the Vietnam War Memorial--but even this is false, since the audience is responding to the powerful image of the name-filled stone, not the tepid story which has brought us here. In a genre--Vietnam War movies--that has had its share of brilliant, revealing dramas, In Country neither illuminates nor entertains. It simply bores, no matter how honorable its intentions. Not recommended. (R. Pitman)