Recalled

My fellow 2012 Seattle International Film Festival audience members agreed that this was far better than the write-up in the catalog led us to expect. This is a fast-moving, involving film about a US National Guard unit and it doesn't contain ONE gunshot!

When National Guardsmen volunteered they were told to allocate one weekend per month to Guard duty, instead, after 9/11 they are being recalled for one-year full combat duty over and over again. We join a National Guard unit being recalled to Iraq with battle-weary guardsmen bracing themselves and their families for yet another tour of duty. The top medic in the unit has applied for, and been granted, family leave because his son has been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer (the first diagnosis was asthma).

Here are the players:

• Seth Gabel ("Jonah Hex") is a baby-faced Ivy Leaguer who is a First Lieutenant in the unit. His influential father has obtained a deferment so he doesn't have to deploy.
• Bow Wow ("The Family Tree") is that top medic. His expertise is vital to the unit and the commander is determined to bring all of his boys home. Our medic really wants to see his son!
• Pablo Schreiber ("Happythankyoumoreplease") is a returning Ranger. He is assigned the slot vacated by the First Lieutenant. He broke off his engagement because he didn't want to ask his girl to wait for over a year.
• Dominic Fumusa ("One Fall") is the dedicated commander who has weighed the value of that medic to all the lives of his men, as opposed to a brief visit with one sick (and maybe doomed) child.
• Aiden Quinn ("The Eclipse") is the Commanding Officer who is the final determiner of everyone's fate. He has to be pragmatic and fair, whether or not he likes it!

This has people to root for, a legitimate moral quandary, suspense, action, and a lesson in loyalty. It has some profanity but no vehicular mayhem, some fisticuffs but no gunfire, and no blowie uppie stuff. Imagine that!