In Country
Directors Sidney Lumet, Alan J. Pakula, Sydney Pollack, and Norman  Jewison astutely documented the political pulse of  the '60s and '70s with such films asPrince of the City,The Parallax View,Three Days of the Condor, andIn 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'sbookand it was Bruce Willis's first effort to  break out of hisMoonlightingandDie Hardmold 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  Countryambitiously 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