In Country 1989

Dave Kehr, Chicago Tribune: This is no tribute to the war dead, but an unthinking betrayal of them -- they've been drafted again, this time to supply a climax to a second-rate tearjerker. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times: There's a decency about this movie that's almost palpable. It's not trying to pump us up with false jingoism or the sins of the past. Jewison, a Canadian, probably approaches the entire subject with a mediatory mood. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: The scene at the memorial is one of the film's best, but director Jewison fails to find in it anything close to the level of emotional force that the same scene in Mason's book has. Read more

Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer: In essence, In Country is a well-turned variation on the quest to find a father that shows up in the folk tales of almost any culture. Read more

Caryn James, New York Times: In Country means to capture the deep tragedy at the center of pedestrian lives. Instead, it becomes a pedestrian film. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is like a time bomb. You sit there, interested, absorbed, sometimes amused, sometimes moved, but wondering in the back of your mind what all of this is going to add up to. Then you find out. Read more

TIME Magazine: Sounds like your basic TV movie, sunk by noble intentions. But here well meaning translates into well done. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Jewison's post-Vietnam movie concentrates on bereavement, with the consequence that it's decent but dull. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: Norman Jewison usually is a commanding storyteller, but In Country is a film with two stories that fail to add up to something greater. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: Though Bruce Willis has top billing as a troubled Vietnam veteran, British whizbang Emily Lloyd virtually squeezes him off the screen as his live-in niece, whose soldier father died before she was born. Read more