John (Scott Eastwood) is from a poor surfer family. His parents, Shelia (Rita Wilson) and Trick (Jeff Fahey), run a struggling surfing shop. His brother Ben (Chris Brochu) catches his girlfriend Donna (Kim Matula) with Miguel. Later, John finds Ben shot dead in the head on the beach. At a later time, John is a Marine in a foreign desert held prisoner by an Arab woman. The flashbacks reveal a tale of revenge, deceit, betrayal, guilt, and dread.The story is a grinding muddle. Scott Eastwood may be more photogenic than his father but lacks his inner intensity. He doesn't have the charisma to take over a movie. It could still work as a harden family crime drama but the future story takes away whatever tension is left. Once the reveal is done, the movie struggles for another half hour. Then there is a final twist which only leaves the story feeling silly.

The entire story rests on the fact that the younger brother was killed and he revenges his killing... problem is they wrote the younger brother as a complete pieces jerk that I for one was happy to see killed. They made the whole family come across as a bunch of pathetic, obnoxious losers. I got the impression that the writers had absolutely NO IDEA how to connect with an audience. Out of curiosity, I'm going to have to look up the writers to see if they've actually done anything of merit.End result, about 10 minutes into the movie I lost ALL interest in the story. Paid for the movie and didn't even bother to watch rest of it. Last time I did this was years ago.

I was so impressed with this effort that I finally signed up for an IMDb account just to write this review. Bravo for all except some military mistakes with the wardrobe. In the scenes where he is wearing the dress alpha, the green coat has hash marks on the sleeve. Hash marks are worn only after 4 years of service. Hash marks are added every four years of service thereafter. Later dialog reveals that the son had been missing just over a year when the funeral took place. Also, I wasn't clear how his hand got bloodied. But these are minor details to an otherwise high quality production. I am looking forward to more products like this. Thank you for sharing your art.

I just saw this movie at the Austin Film Festival this evening. The script was a finalist in the screenplay contest several years ago. I got to meet the writers last year at the festival so I understand what inspired them to write this story. Aside from a well written script are the actors that made this story come to life. The dialog and the acting built a lot of tension between characters in this story.The main character is a young man played who carries this story. His character is very captivating. He wants to do right by his parents, but then his conscience won't leave him alone. He finally comes to terms with his conscience and is willing to do something about it, but what he and his father thinks will happen doesn't.