Critic Reviews

• Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times

  This quietly affecting indie film, about a Middle East war vet and the 10-year-old boy he takes under his wing, gently pulls the heartstrings while making dramatic missteps along the way.

• Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post

  The results are too predictable.

• Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

  Though both actors deliver performances more credible than the plot that frames them, their authenticity only highlights the script's affection for improbable coincidences and an ending even Garry Marshall might consider too pat.

• Simon Abrams, Village Voice

  A film in which any authority figure who can't magically sober up and play surrogate daddy for a spell is treated as either a meddler or a well-meaning, do-nothing skeptic.

• Prairie Miller, Long Island Press

  Excels in performances resonating with raw intensity and dramatic authenticity. But while earnestly inspired by the tragic circumstances facing US soldiers in war for real, the material forming the basis here is without historical context, and it shows.

• Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle

  It all ends on a grace note that feels false but caps an otherwise solid if predictable drama.

• Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion

  Earnestness combines with pedestrian technique in Martin Papazian's well-meaning but clumsy film.

• Todd Jorgenson, Cinemalogue.com

  Papazian overloads the film with contrived melodrama and forced sentimentality.

• David Noh, Film Journal International

  This entry in the returning-vet genre should probably have gone straight to the Lifetime channel.

• Chuck Bowen, Slant Magazine

  As a portrait of a self-pitying drunk's wet dream of inexplicable atonement, it's fairly effective, but as a story meant to take place on some rational version of planet Earth, it's utterly hopeless.

Read all 10 critic reviews