If even a hint of melodrama had been allowed to creep into his performance the movie's credibility would have been shot. Fortunately his performance is a masterful piece of understatement mixed with emotion that epitomizes the tone of restraint of all the performances throughout the movie.
The initials M.I.A. resonated with veterans of the Vietnam War probably far more than they ever had for previous wars. Missing In Action, how many American service men and women continue to be Missing In Action, their bodies never found or their remains never identified. They'd go out with their companies on patrol and simply vanish during a firefight, maybe taken prisoner, maybe dying alone in a swamp thousands of miles away from home.
I doubt it was an accident that the initials of Missing In America are the same. These men and women who still live out in the woods, or in any other place that is still inhospitable enough for them to get lost in and avoid humanity, haven't been able to come home to the families they left behind thirty years ago now. They are still Missing In Action.
I've seen only one other movie on the Vietnam War that does justice to veterans as much as this one, In Country. Missing In America isn't an easy film to watch, and that's what makes it such a good movie. If it were easy to watch it wouldn't have done its topic justice. And if there is any group of people who deserve justice it's the forgotten men and women who are Missing In America
Article comments
1 - Ralph
Missing in America missed some logical facts. The movie made reference to the fact that our war buddies were serving around 1970. Shouldn't that make the girl in her mid to late 30's? Other than that, it was a good movie.
2 - Gary
Did you even watch the movie? Henry went back to Vietnam and that is when he meet his wife and they had Lenny.