Actor Gary Sinise says that his new veteran-focused film, “Brothers After War,” was made in part to forge a connection between the military and “the average American.”
Sinise is an executive producer on the project, teaming up with filmmaker and director Jake Rademacher.
A synopsis of the film says: “Jake Rademacher reconnects with his brothers and elite Soldiers and Marines he embedded with during the Iraq War. Intercutting footage past and present, he leads us on an insightful, humorous, and moving journey as we watch warfighters explore loss, meaning, and hope on their path from warfighter to veteran.”
Rademacher and Sinise sat down with Morning Wire for an interview about the film, which will be released in full on Saturday.
The director said one of his goals was to present the service members as “three-dimensional” characters with both flaws and virtues. “Oftentimes when you see documentaries, people cherrypick sad stories. They’re not really in the community, somebody’s kind of doing their drive by film about it,” Rademacher said.
“I’ve got to actually spend a day with these people,” he continued. “I’ve got to embed in their life. Now I embedded with them in the foxholes… I got to jump out of an airplane with them or go scuba diving, or get weapons training, which I did all of that.”
The filmmaker said he wanted to show that the subjects of the documentary are “highly functioning people” who are “still carrying some of the invisible wounds of war.”
“They still have some work to do. And, and I’ll show their vulnerability, but I also want to show their strength,” he said. “That’s the power of the movie. It makes tough subjects easier to talk about.”
Sinise referenced his iconic role playing Lieutenant Dan in the classic “Forrest Gump.”
He said the “good thing” about that fictional story is that it can represent healing, which is possible for veterans going through a tough time.
“The good thing about [Lieutenant Dan’s] story is that it’s a happy ending at the end, right? You’ve got a guy who goes off to war. He’s serving during a time of conflict in our own country about whether he should have even been in the war or not. He has to isolate,” Sinise said.
“He drowns himself in alcohol and disappears, but then, thankfully, at the end of that story, he’s standing up again. He’s making peace and he’s moving on. …That’s the story that we want for every single person who goes and serves in the military and comes home from war and defends our country. We want them to be okay. We want them to move on.”
“We want [veterans] to know that there’s a way to share their stories,” Sinise said of the documentary project during an interview with Newsmax. “Their stories are important. And I think by seeing this film and seeing the veterans in this film sharing their stories on camera for the world to see, it’s going to be very, very encouraging for somebody who may just need to talk about something but hasn’t been able to do it.”
“There’s a big disconnect between the average American who doesn’t have a relationship to anybody in the military and our military, the people that actually serve our country,” the actor said. “So maybe ‘Brothers After War’ can help bridge that disconnect. That’s what we hope.”
The 69-year-old star founded the Gary Sinise Foundation in 2011 and has been advocating for veterans ever since through outreach, visiting service members and veterans around the world, and calling attention to issues that matter to them.
He also helped fund this new documentary and partnered with Regal Cinema to make a record donation ($150,000) to entertainment nonprofit Vet Tix so free tickets to the film are available.
“Brothers After War” hits theaters on Friday, February 28. Participating theaters can be found on the film’s official website.