SGT. Will Gardner

SGT. Will Gardner

So, they say, Show it, don’t tell it in movies. This is evidently not the case with SGT Will Gardner. Yes! It depicts(action wise) and depicts (narratively) at times with a country music song. The terrible trauma of poetically consistent narrative suppression within the ideology of the film is difficult to criticize because it is about a very important topic. Furthermore, he notes weak points in the script as the battle against a strong template.

The film follows a homeless veteran Sergeant Will Gardner (Max Martini), who travels from California aboard a bus for a cross-country road trip to his son’s house in New Mexico. SGT. Will Gardner emphasizes many concerns regarding the transition of veterans and some psychological or physical injuries. Gardner was involved and suffered and sustained a Tobi during the Iraq war. It has bearing on him working successfully, severe alcohol dependence, and always seeing visions of his best friend who died in the war.

The film has plenty of good things. The actors’ performances are mostly quite strong and salvage some rough edges of the script. Martini is an actor I’ve liked in the past and is a draw. He takes on the triple role of lead, director and writer in the film and does the best he can. It’s obvious this film is personal for Martini. This is his first attempt at directing a feature film and he does well in it. Foods in the film look nice and they help us keep focused as we follow Gardner across the country.

The only point at which I felt a bit lost was during one of Gardner’s flashbacks to the Iraqi desert during one particular battle, but that was a stylistic choice, given the chaos in such combat situations. Martini as Gardner leaves nothing behind. His performance in the scenes where he accosts himself imagining his dead comrade portrayed exquisitely by Omari Hardwick are the best and also quite excruciating. Even in the first half of the film when Gardner starts drinking alcohol probably like it is his job to block all memories, devastates the viewer. It is more than exciting and entertaining to watch Martini do not hold back.

Undoubtedly the best performance in the film is by Lily Rabe as Mary-Anne Mackey. The film opens with Mary-Anne dramatically walking off the job and exiting the premises. She sets out on a road trip in her Prius, with Gardner appearing on his motorcycle several times in the distance. She confuses him for actor Bryan Cranston from the show ‘Breaking Bad.’

Cleverly, the film shows her searching for Cranston on Google and finding a picture of a bearded cranson and speculating it could be Gardner. A few steamy moments follow where she persists in her delusion that he is Cranston until the conclusion of the several episodes of their relationship. For every second, the actress Rabe is on the screen, life is injected into the film in copious amounts. I should note that her character is not developed as a main character but her presence in the film is perfect to provide a sense of kick and joy to the plot.

Couple other performances that are also interesting are the mentioned Omari Hardwick as the dead soldier Top. Playing a vision takes a lot of skill and Omari Hardwick manages to accomplish that with ease. His performance in the movie serves to help the viewer in some of the more difficult areas of the film. This helps the Gardner character to say some of the things that he does not want in to say in his own voice, but through another personality. The name given to Gardner while in the army was Ghost but, in one of the early sequences, it is Top who appears like a Ghost.

One who has to witness his friend self-destruct with whiskey and regret. There are only a few words for Gary Sinise who also appears in the film but only briefly. Due to his charitable work for veterans that are thanked in the credits, it seems that it was a passion project for Gary Sinise as well.’, Adding Gary Sinise to a movie is always a pleasure, and although he does not have a lot of screen time in this film, he makes the most of it.

The two things that I find most troubling about the script are that the characters are able to make revoltingly quick emotional transitions, and the excessive focus on patriotism in their dialogues which completely takes you out of the picture. The clearest representation of the first issue is when Gardner arrives from New Mexico and is able to locate his son.

Gardner’s ex-wife Kimmy gets angry and screams at Gardner to stay away from her son. Then later during the day when her husband comes home, she goes out to tell him that there is a man named Gardner who she is not including inside the house. It is evident that she is anxious and perhaps frightened to know that there is a man like Gardner inside her house. Then, the next day she rounds Gardner’s hand at a baseball field telling him that she would still want him and he ditched everything to be with her. It really contradicts quite a lot what we have already witnessed.

Patriotism is repeatedly discussed in a strong voice throughout the movie. In any case, I do think those who served this country’s armed forces deserve respect and have made sacrifices that must be regarded as selfless and honorable. But patriotism is not an easy concept, especially in today’s landscape, it is hard to simply put such a broad idea in simple words. Gardner’s son states that he aspires to become a Navy Seal and Gardner tells his son that even loving the country is enough to be a soldier.

It almost sounds false, considering what Gardner has witnessed and continues to witness in Iraq, coming from a father to his young son. The exact statement can be repeated multiple times and, as in the first case, the proclaiming of love for one’s country and serving it, though the truth is rather harsher than black and white, comes across as clichéd and forced narrative.

Another thing that I believe works is the incorporation of poetry into voiceovers throughout the movie. Reading is one of Gardner’s pursuits in this movie, and Martini incorporates the poetry to gain insight into Gardner’s character and his thoughts. Poetry serves as a great transitional device most of the time and I really appreciate that.

Let me get back in time; how I started the review and the most relevant aspect, the issues that veterans deal with are dramatic, indeed, and, as one sees in the end note of the film, there are even more than hundreds of thousands of Diem with TBI, many do pass away seeing their claims for healthcare living in the queues for eternity and the veteran suicide is beyond words.

The questions identified with the film are very spectacular; however, the film itself is many times very crude about the way how these questions are tackled. There is rather good in the film that, yes, one has to watch it simply because of the fact that it’s a film but prepare yourself for some difficult moments in terms of dialogue and character arcs. It was also mentioned in the film, that there are three charities that help veterans: Gary Sinise Foundation, Higher Ground, and Warriors Heart.

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