Pat Dollard | Young Americans

WSJ:

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

It was impossible to imagine, beforehand, all the ways a film like “Taking Chance” (Saturday, 8-9:30 p.m. EST, on HBO) could work its power. There are no conflicts, no warring sides, no mysteries of character — the usual stuff of drama. The story’s outcome is clear from the beginning. Yet it’s no less clear that “Taking Chance” is not only high drama, but a kind that is, in the most literal way, breathtaking — watching parts of it can make breathing an effort, and those parts come at every turn. It’s no less obvious that this film, about a Marine killed in combat, could have gone wrong in all sorts of ways and did so in none of them. There is in this work, at once so crushing and exhilarating, not a false note.

The credit for that belongs to Lt. Col. Michael Stroble, U.S. Marine Corps, on whose journal the film is based; to producer, writer and director Ross Katz; and, not least, to Kevin Bacon, whose portrayal of the devoted Col. Stroble is a masterwork — flawless in its fierce economy, eloquent in its testimony, most of it wordless, to everything that is going on.

And that is a great deal. The process by which the remains of a fallen Marine are prepared and shipped is exquisitely detailed — details the film spills out at its own quietly riveting pace. All servicemen who have died are provided a uniformed escort home to their final resting places. The colonel — a Desert Storm veteran who is impelled, for reasons made known later in the film, to escort the remains of 19-year-old Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps, killed in Iraq in 2004 — must accompany the body from the Dover Air Force Base mortuary to the lance corporal’s burial place in Dubois, Wyo.

It’s a long trip. Everywhere along the way, he encounters Americans of every age, class and occupation who are transfixed once they understand they are in the presence of a military escort officer taking a serviceman home. That presence is enough. They don’t need the sight of the flag-draped casket. All that they feel they show this uniformed officer, the stand-in for their dead fellow American, for his family, for the funeral service they can’t get to — and the recipient of their grief and regard.

He receives a seat upgrade to first class, bestowed by an airline ticket agent — she doesn’t have to explain why — and a small silver crucifix somebody else hands him. He’s the object of countless searching looks from travelers who do catch sight of the flag-covered coffin, at some transfer point, as the colonel salutes. They want to know what to do, the looks say. The cargo handlers know — they have seen these caskets and escorts before — and they do it. Throughout these scenes, tremendous in their affect, stands the colonel, registering these responses in silence — and, as Mr. Bacon so successfully makes us feel, in the depths of his soul.

The film had its origins in the official trip report all military escorts are supposed to file after their assignment has ended — observations on mundane matters, usually, or tips learned along the way that might be useful to other escorts. The notes that the real-life Col. Stroble ended up writing — on all that he had seen, had marveled at and been moved by — became a journal that eventually caught the attention of a producer who brought it to HBO. The colonel, a veteran of 17 years of military service, was in a better position to reflect on such a journey than most other military escorts. As a senior officer he was also something of an oddity for this job. High-ranking officers didn’t usually accompany the caskets of lance corporals, as the film informs us.

He had his reasons for volunteering for escort duty. What is this all about? his film wife wants to know. It’s not about anything, the taciturn colonel informs her. It is, of course, about something, as we will learn — the feelings of an officer serving stateside while others are doing their duty in Iraq. But this is only a minor note. The film remains, to the end, exemplary in its focus on the journey home of the unbearably young Marine, Chance Phelps, and its effect on Col. Stroble, his escort — a portrayal that will, we can expect, earn a string of honors for Kevin Bacon, and they’ll be well-deserved.

Me: Thank the cable gods for “HBO On Demand” … I forgot this one was on tonight and will have to catch it there.