Thank You for Your Service movie review (2017)
Much of the movie simply shows the characters talking to each other about the war and life after the war, and about their families and obligations and hopes for the future. Hall's script is filled with jocular, often casually profane dialogue that captures the way real men and women speak to each other during private moments. There are scenes that feel too loose or fragmented for their own good, and moments early on when the lead performances seem too casual; but as the tale unfolds we start to appreciate the actors' pretense of naturalism as well as the director's refusal to frame any shots in conventionally polished ways (the compositions are intelligent and occasionally expressive, but very rarely pretty). At its best, the movie evokes fond memories of four of the best scripted features about U.S. veterans made within the mainstream system, "The Best Years of Our Lives," "The Deer Hunter," "Coming Home" and "Born on the Fourth of July."
Teller's performance as Schumann is easily his best work since "The Spectacular Now," and nearly everyone else in the cast matches or exceeds him in intelligence and judgment. But the breakout star here is Koale, a New Zealand-born actor of Samoan descent who has never had a lead role in a major film before. His disarmingly understated performance is so bereft of the usual actorly tricks that there are times when the film's dramatic architecture seems to vanish, leaving you feeling as if you're watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a young man who just got back from war. He's extraordinary.
"Thank You For Your Service" is also, in its way, a political film, though not in a tedious left wing/right wing sense. The causes of the Iraq War and its ultimate historical significance are not Hall's concern, but at the same time, the film avoids lapsing into the cliche of "The only thing that matters in war is the soldier next to you," perhaps recognizing it as a means of avoiding political reality. In its own quiet, even sneaky way, however, this is an angry film. It directs its anger at a country which, ever since the military and humanitarian disaster of Vietnam and the end of the active draft, has subcontracted war to lower middle class and poor people (and mercenaries), then allowed politicians to keep them mostly out of sight and mind after they've endured and committed unimaginable violence. Veterans are treated as human props in this country, posed in front of flags and trotted out at sporting events and momentarily flattered by politicians of both parties, even as legislators and presidents neglect their care or gut their benefits, and large sections of the public forget they even exist. The phrase that serves as the film's title is often the only gesture of gratitude that veterans receive from people who don't know them personally. There's no meaningful support network for people like Adam and Tausolo. They walk through the film's alternately crowded and desolate panoramas like invisible men, ghosts among the living.
