Biel turns in one of her best performances to date and makes a real person out of Price and her plight. The storyline that stands out above all of the others is the one that involves Vanessa Price, played by Jessica Biel. Two of the four interlinked story lines are highly effective while the remaining two try and fail to be as engrossing. His writings offer a lens through which to consider how ‘terrorism’ operates symbolically, and fundamentally, the dilemmas this raises for a Western psyche grappling with how the ‘terrorist threat’ might be answered, engaged with, responded to.Home of the Brave is a war film that tells the stories of four soldiers that return home from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Baudrillard’s hypotheses on terrorism – as a symbolic challenge put forth by terrorism (embodied by the attack on the Twin Towers) – and the West’s incapacity to respond to it, forms the basis for our investigation of the limits of these films to incite and engage viewers. This article seeks to investigate audience indifference (Jean Baudrillard claims a certain indifference is a fundamental consequence of the Western globalising ideology) to particular mainstream cinematic depictions of the post September 11 invasion of Iraq, via a consideration of the trauma and abjection depicted in these films. Despite their topical subject matter, these movies were, for the most part, commercial failures. We cannot let the audience win.’ The films he is referring to include Home of the Brave (2006), In the Valley of Elah (2007) and Stop-Loss (2008) – all of which focus on the personal cost to American soldiers on their return to civilian life, as well as exposing the failure of the US invasion of Iraq at home and abroad. Withdrawing the Iraq movies would only embolden the audience. But I’m telling you, if we stay the course and keep these movies in the theatres we can turn this around. The films that were made about the Iraq War, let’s face it, did not do as well. Speaking about the state of the Hollywood film industry at the 2008 Academy Awards, the Oscars’ host – comedian Jon Stewart – made the following wry assessment: ‘Not all films did as well as Juno obviously.
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