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Shia LaBeouf struggles with PTSD in manipulative thriller ‘Man Down’

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Kate Mara and Shia LeBeouf in Man Down.

One and a half stars

Man Down Shia LaBeouf, Jai Courtney, Kate Mara. Directed by Dito Montiel. Rated R. Opens Friday at Regal Red Rock and Century Sam’s Town.

Ten years ago, both writer-director Dito Montiel and actor Shia LaBeouf made major career moves with A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Montiel’s feature directing debut and one of LaBeouf’s first serious adult roles after a career as a child actor. Neither of them has lived up to the promise shown in Saints, and their reunion for the woefully misguided drama Man Down marks another misstep. LaBeouf plays Marine Gabriel Drummer, who leaves his wife and young son behind when he’s deployed to Afghanistan, where he’s involved in a traumatic incident of some sort. He returns home only to discover that things have gotten even worse, and his hometown (and possibly the entire country) appears to have devolved into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

It’s obvious from the first moments that the post-apocalyptic storyline (which is intercut with scenes of Gabriel’s training, deployment and home life) isn’t really what it appears to be, but Montiel and co-writer Adam G. Simon hold back the absurd twist until the overblown finale, which turns a somewhat bland military drama into a borderline insulting take on PTSD. Gabriel’s struggles as a Marine—including his boot camp training with a stereotypical hard-nosed drill sergeant, his bond with his best buddy Devin (Jai Courtney), his difficulty leaving his family behind and his tragic split-second decision on the battlefield—are fairly standard war-movie material, and Montiel delivers them with a flat visual style (including some terrible CGI) and choppy pacing as the narrative cuts back and forth between time periods. LaBeouf mumbles nearly all his lines in an effort to convey Gabriel’s tortured psyche, but his mannered performance feels inauthentic.

The entire movie comes off as disingenuous, paying lip service to respecting members of the military (with a closing title card about PTSD, homelessness and suicide among returned veterans) while exploiting the very real struggles of veterans for the sake of a melodramatic and manipulative psychological thriller. It’s a cynical cheat for both the audience and the characters.

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