Joining Stop-Loss and In The Valley Of Elah in the fight against the antipathy and indifference faced by America’s returning military personnel, Home Of The Brave is another worthy attempt to bring the Iraq war home.

It follows the post-traumatic stresses of four servicepeople: field surgeon Will Marsh (the always-to-be-taken-seriously Jackson), maintenance specialist Vanessa Price (Biel), and infantrymen Tommy Yates (Jim Caviezel lookalike Presley) and Jamal Aiken (the rapper-trying-to-be-taken-seriously Jackson).

They all from the same town – Spokane, Washington – and they are all caught in the same ambush in Iraq. In the event, they all lose something.

Vanessa loses a hand. Tommy loses his best buddy (first rule of war films: never shout “I think I got ’im!”). Jamal loses his cool after shooting an innocent civilian. And on coming home, it’s clear that Dr Marsh has lost both the ability to connect with his wife and the respect of his teenage son.

Best known as the Oscar-winning producer behind Rocky and some of Scorsese’s finest hours, Irwin Winkler has tried his directorial hand at genres ranging from Sandra Bullock techno-thrillers (The Net) to Cole Porter biopics (De-Lovely).

But he began by tackling Hollywood’s anti-Communist witchhunts in Guilty By Suspicion and this finds him in similarly serious mood.

With Jamal hovering on the sidelines, the film switches between Vanessa, Tommy and Marsh as they deal with their problems on Civvy Street.

It seems most people don’t want to know, don’t understand or don’t care about what’s going on in the Middle East. Winkler and co-writer Mark Friedman unite their characters through their shared sense of frustration and isolation rather than in the physical sense.

The narrative occasionally wobbles, Christina Ricci swiftly disappearing after making an interesting mark as Tommy’s dead friend’s sister while Marsh’s battle with the bottle and Jamal’s meltdown lead to some unnecessary melodramatics.

Fortunately, none of this detracts from committed performances by Jackson (the elder), Presley and Biel, the latter as impressive as the subtle visual effects that leave her without a right hand.

Elliott Noble