TAKING CHANCE

US, 2009, 77 minutes, Colour.
Kevin Bacon, Tom Aldredge, Blanche Baker.
Directed by Ross Katz.

Taking Chance was nominated for an Emmy for best motion picture made for television. It won the Emmy for Kevin Bacon’s performance as the true-life Lieutenant Colonel Michael Strobl. Strobl co-wrote the screenplay with director Ross Katz.

This is an Iraq War film, although there are no sequences of warfare. There is only a description, later in the film before the burial of their buddy, that his friends reminisce about their war action.

This is a film about those killed in Iraq, the bodies which are brought back, the escorts who accompany the bodies from Iraq to Germany, to the United States, in the preparation for burial, to the home towns of the deceased soldiers, who participate in the tributes and the funerals. Michael Strobl was a numbers cruncher and strategist for the marines. Feeling that he should have been seen in action, he volunteers to accompany the body of a young nineteen-year-old marine back to Wyoming. His wife does not quite understand. However, he feels this need and the film shows, step by step, his journey. Of interest is the range of people that he meets on the way and their response to his role as well as their reaction to the death of a young man serving in Iraq.

The film would have great impact for the families of soldiers who had died in action, no matter what country, but particularly in the United States. In its detail, it shows a great respect for those who have died and the treatment that they are given in their deaths.

Kevin Bacon gives a fine, very serious, restrained performance.

1. The impact of the television movie, its acclaim and awards, it touching an American nerve at the time? For any audience which has experienced the death of loved ones in warfare?

2. The background of Iraq, the setting of 2004, the early years after the invasion? The film released in 2009? The status of the war? America’s war experience? The hawkish attitudes? The doves? The scenes with President George W. Bush? His behaviour, attitudes? Americans and their knowledge of and ignorance of the Middle East?

3. The dead, respect for the dead? Each side of the political spectrum offering respect? Grief, the cross-section of people seen in the film, the military escorts, the young driver who had not enlisted for action, the clerk at the check-in counter, the flight attendant giving the crucifix, the girl texting and then realising the nature of the mission, the men who work on the airlines, the war veterans in the small town, ordinary people? Audience response?

4. The respect shown in the transport of the bodies from Iraq, in Germany, the planes and the rituals for the soldiers, the coffins, putting in the ice, the identification tags, preparing the bodies, blood, nails, personal effects and their being cleaned, kept in a bag? The escort details, the salutes, the planes and the respectful behaviour? Travel? The family, the speeches, the ritual handing over of possessions, the eulogies and the meeting, the burials?

5. Mike, the autobiographical nature of the film, his number-crunching, in his office, the advice to the military, its being rejected? In the office? With the family, his wife and children? The family man? Service in Desert Storm, talking to the man who had been a pilot? Feeling some guilt because of not seeing action? His volunteering, wife not understanding, the formalities of the escort work, his behaviour, the communications, at the airport and his refusal to remove his jacket for the security guard? Staying in the airport, keeping vigil over the body? Meeting the family, the full dress uniform, listening to the stories of the buddies, his speech, weeping at the funeral, his return home, his wife and her concern?

6. No action sequences in the film, solely the verbal explanation of what had happened, in retrospect?

7. The variety of military personnel, officers, those responsible for preparing the bodies, the escorts…?

8. The dead man’s family, the young men, the parents, their being separated, their new spouses, the grief? The sister and brother-in-law? The buddies and the talking? The World War Two and Vietnam veterans?

9. The place of Taking Chance along with the range of Vietnam films? Released in the year that The Hurt Locker won the Oscar for best film?