This is a feel-good story about a bad situation attempting to shed light on an awful tragedy.
ON the very week that the Obama administration is looking into lifting the ban on the media from witnessing the return of caskets from Iraq and Afghanistan, HBO’s original movie, “Taking Chance,” tells the true story of the journey of a soldier’s remains back home.
A little movie about a big tragedy, “Taking Chance” is based on the journal kept by a Marine colonel, Mike Strobe, who volunteered to escort the remains of Private First Class Chance Phelps, a 20-year- old kid who was killed in Iraq.
Now, I believed that the caskets are simply put on a plane and met at the closet airport to the soldier’s hometown by the undertaker and family. As it turns out, the US military treats these deaths with much more dignity than we have been led to believe.
Perhaps that misconception happened because we’ve been banned from viewing the caskets in the first place. The ban was put into place in 1991 during the first Gulf war because the first Bush administration believed that the American public seeing those caskets during the Vietnam war, on the nightly news, caused further civil unrest and rioting.
“Taking Chance,” which was co-written by Strobe, stars Kevin Bacon as the colonel, who, apparently feeling guilty that he decided to re-up for a desk job instead of going to Iraq, takes the somewhat unprecedented step of volunteering to escort a PFC’s remains home.
But before that happens, we are shown, in detail, exactly how the military treats the body – from washing it down, to cleaning the blood off his personal effects, to dressing the corpse in full dress uniform, medals in place.
But it’s not just a story about how the bodies are respected by the military – it’s really a story about how the fallen soldiers are respected along the route by the American public. Whether it’s an airline upgrade for the escort, or a 10-vehicle line of strangers who follow the hearse, or a pilot’s announcement upon landing that he’s had the privilege of flying a fallen soldier home, this is a feelgood story about a bad situation attempting to shed light on an awful tragedy.
Bacon is good, as you’d expect, although the movie is almost done in mime with little dialogue. Bacon, as the strong silent type, is seen running, holding back tears and being dutifully respectful.
But, the reality is that this would have been a much-more fulfilling journey if we’d had more interaction between Strobe and the regular folks he meets along the way. When he meets Phelps’ old friends at the VFW hall, for example, the movie takes a different turn. But for the most part, “Taking Chance” is like a documentary – with actors.
“Taking Chance” Tomorrow night at 9 on HBO