Overall a failure as a movie.Several times at the start the film dies before it has even gotten started: at the very start; at the high school graduation; at the repetitive scenes of the girl running.Not a good way to start a movie.The main character certainly fooled me. I would not have guessed she was British.The only scenes of interest were those dealing with the veterans. The war scenes were pathetically done.A half-hearted effort by a poor director.Stay away from this one.

How to begin. First, the good. I agree with others that Bruce Willis & Emily Lloyd were excellent. Most early Bruce is that awful smirk or nothing. I think Miss Lloyd was actually better as the girl. The movie is a sincere attempt to cover the ground of the Vietnam thing but all it really ends up doing is wallowing in a more varied assortment of stereotypes than usual. This is nice vicarious fun for those who were not involved. As far as I can tell I'm the only Vietnam ERA veteran to comment (not a combat veteran thank god). I like to flatter myself by thinking that I can comment in some measure for them. We are veterans of an ERA not a war. Most of them (the combat veterans) probably can't stand to watch let alone comment. This last bit is what really makes me hate this movie in spite of the good part above so listen up. At the most emotional part of the movie where Willis is getting teary eyed at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial with the music track building to a soft, emotional crescendo what does Mr Willis place beside the Bronze Star Medal at the wall? That's right he places (reverently) a pack of Camel cigarettes. This is what's known as a 'placement'. For those who don't know this means that the cigarettes are a paid commercial message like a spot on TV. I have to admit this is the most professional, artful, perfectly done placement I have ever seen. So good in fact that it becomes almost invisible even though it's right in front of you. A classic placement, really one for the textbooks. Also totally ruthless. It takes a third rate filmmaker like me to spot it properly & reveal it for what it is. This is beyond disrespect. Mr Willis character should have urinated on the wall instead.

It's easy to see why so few people seem to have connected with this underrated movie. There's no nudity, no violence, no killing, no superstars chewing up the scenery. It is, instead, a quiet, maybe too slow-moving, film about a teenage girl at the cusp of womanhood trying to learn about what Vietnam had been like for her father, who was killed there. She also begins to see her ex-G.I. uncle clearly, for the first time, as a survivor of something terrible. In Country is about the Vietnam War only as in the sense that it's also about a family's history whose impact bridges the generations. It's less about events than it is about becoming a grown-up in an America that has a sixty-second attention span and a fifteen-minute memory. Emily Lloyd, who you'd never guess is English, does a beautifully sensitive job in the starring role, and Bruce Willis, as her uncle, turns in a very fine, very dignified performance.

This film introduces familiar characters and develops them as examples of how losing someone to Vietnam (even if they came home) changed the lives of much of our country. The characters are not "important" figures and the film's impact is greater for displaying how common were those experiences. Bruce Willis' acting is superb and John Terry's character may be the most haunting.