Drama
USA / English
Bruce Willis |
Emmett Smith |
Emily Lloyd |
Samantha Hughes |
Joan Allen |
Irene |
Kevin Anderson |
Lonnie |
John Terry |
Tom |
Peggy Rea |
Mamaw |
Judith Ivey |
Anita |
Daniel Jenkins |
Dwayne |
Stephen Tobolowsky |
Pete |
Jim Beaver |
Earl Smith |
Director |
Norman Jewison |
Producer |
Norman Jewison; Richard Roth; Michael Jewison |
Writer |
Bobbie Ann Mason; Frank Pierson; Cynthia Cidre |
Directors Sidney Lumet, Alan J. Pakula, Sydney Pollack, and Norman Jewison astutely documented the political pulse of the '60s and '70s with such films as
Prince of the City,
The Parallax View,
Three Days of the Condor, and
In the Heat of the Night. Lumet and Jewison have carried their cinematic social consciousness into their past two decades of filmmaking as well.
In Country (1989) is Jewison's mournful look at one American family's struggle to survive the aftermath of Vietnam. The film is based on Bobbie Ann Mason's book and it was Bruce Willis's first effort to break out of his
Moonlighting and
Die Hard mold by tackling the dramatically dark role of Emmett, a Vietnam veteran whose flashbacks of battle horror have pushed him into isolation from the world. His niece, Samantha (Emily Lloyd), lost her dad in the war, and these two unlikely people form a bond based on a past Emmett can't escape and a future that looms bright and beautiful for Samantha. What Jewison does best is evoke the sense of hope that was once held by the forgotten survivors of that terrible war.
In Country ambitiously struggles to pull all of its threads together, and while this is a wonderful character study, it has a messy, meandering structure that never quite gels or answers the questions it poses. Yet there's no denying that the climactic closing scenes have a poignancy and power that will bring tears to anyone watching.
--Paula Nechak
Distributor |
Warner Home Video |
Barcode |
012569732483 |
Region |
Region 1 |
Release Date |
2/7/2006 |
Packaging |
Keep Case |
Screen Ratio |
Fullscreen (4:3) |
Subtitles |
English (Closed Captioned) |
Audio Tracks |
Dolby Digital Stereo [English] |
Layers |
Single Side, Dual Layer |
Nr of Disks/Tapes |
1 |