long road home movie review

TV Review: ‘The Long Road Home’ on National Geographic

By Maureen Ryan

Maureen Ryan

Chief TV Critic

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The Iraq War miniseries “ The Long Road Home ” contains some sequences that are powerfully affecting. There’s often an arresting clarity to the way it depicts the taking or the saving of a life during battle — acts that can be strangely intimate, especially at close quarters. But like a soldier on a training course, you have to slog through a number of obstacles in order to reach the optimal terrain.

The eight-part miniseries is based on reporting by journalist Martha Raddatz: Her 2007 book of the same name chronicled the day three years earlier on which a small group soldiers from the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division were pinned down in Sadr City. In the scenes leading up to their departure for Iraq, it’s clear the soldiers and their officers expected relatively uneventful peacekeeping duties, as did their families.

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Once in Iraq, division personnel weren’t even done unpacking their gear before things went wrong. Events continued to spiral as various convoys sent to save the initial platoon, which was pinned down, ran into bloody and effective opposition. Intelligent and well-intentioned officers kept making reasonable plans to save their troops, but each operation kept getting, as a grunt might say, FUBAR.

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“The Long Road Home”  often  does an excellent job of putting the viewer into the boots of individual soldiers: What do you do when a child picks up a gun and points it at you? What happens after a truck full of mostly untested soldiers runs into engine trouble without any backup even remotely nearby? What’s it like to ride in a Humvee or a tank with the dead body of a soldier who had been joking around just an hour before? How does a soldier choose a decisive path forward when he is reeling from an onslaught of deaths and injuries around him?

In moments like those, “The Long Road Home” brings to mind generally superior (and more expensive) dramas such as “The Pacific,” “Band of Brothers” and “Generation Kill.” The difference between this NatGeo production and those HBO dramas is that in “Long Road,” many of the protagonists — all those young and frightened or older and grizzled faces beneath the helmets — are not often all that well-defined, either before or during the battle. Characterization is not the strong suit of “The Long Road Home,” but the actors do their level best, and directors Phil Abraham and Mikael Salomon excel at depicting the camaraderie of the soldiers as well as the chaos that envelops them at several key moments.

But “The Long Road Home” could have trimmed its overlong running time by cutting out all the home-front storylines. The desire to incorporate scenes of military families going through the worst stress of their lives is a laudable one. But in those scenes, the miniseries’ clunky, cliche-ridden dialogue is uninterrupted by flying bullets or life-or-death decisions.

At times, “The Long Road Home” comes very close to coming off as propaganda, for either the Army or a narrowly defined vision of America. A scene of a wife at home sewing a 1st Division flag while swelling music plays could have had real psychological impact, had the drama’s non-combat moments developed any kind of sustained depth. Unfortunately the scenes set at Fort Hood are generic at best and predictable at worst.

And though the limited series makes some attempts at addressing what it might have felt like for Iraqis to live through the invasion and the subsequent waves of bloodshed, the locals are not fully developed as characters. That said, very few individuals in this narrative are.

Where the miniseries excels is in depicting the details of logistics and bravery, matters that are often intimately connected, at least for those making snap decisions on the front lines. Time after time, soldiers have to improvise solutions and come up with creative defense strategies when they are put in unexpected and terrifying situations. Lt. Col. Gary Volesky (Michael Kelly) and Capt. Troy Denomy (Jason Ritter) have to keep their cool, no matter what happens, and Kelly and Ritter do solid work in those roles. Of particular note is the consistently good work of E.J. Bonilla, who plays platoon leader 1st Lt. Shane Aguero, who was thrust into a leadership role that he never anticipated and who unhesitatingly stepped up in any number of ways.

Limited series; 8 episodes (4 reviewed); Tues. Nov. 7, 8 p.m. 60 min.

Cast, Michael Kelly, Jason Ritter, E.J. Bonilla, Kate Bosworth, Sarah Wayne Callies , Noel Fisher, Jeremy Sisto, Jon Beavers , Darius Homayoun, Jorge Diaz.

Executive producers, Mike Medavoy, Mikko Alanne , Jason Clark, Benjamin Anderson, Edward McGurn.

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Review: 'The Long Road Home' brings back Iraq War memories

Eight-part miniseries premieres nov. 7 on national geographic.

E.J. Bonilla as Lt. Shane Aguero and Katie Paxton as Amber Aguero on the set of "The Long Road Home" at U.S. Military post, Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas (National Geographic/Van Redin)

by Rose Pacatte

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National Geographic's second scripted series is an eight-part miniseries starring Michael Kelly, Jason Ritter, E.J. Bonilla, Kate Bosworth, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Jeremy Sisto. It tells a tragic and sobering story: the eight-hour siege at Sadr City , a Bagdad neighborhood, on "Black Sunday," April 4, 2004.*

Based on correspondent Martha Raddatz 's New York Times best-selling book, The Long Road Home , the series of the same name is an emotional ride through the horrific experiences and heroic actions of the U.S. Army's 1st Calvary Division when they were ambushed while helping local citizens to drain sewage.

The troops are newly arrived in Iraq when newly acting battalion commander Lt. Col. Gary Volesky (Kelly) sends the convoy in to what they assume to be a peaceful place. The men are mostly young and inexperienced; they worry about ever having to kill a child.

Before leaving Ft. Hood in Texas they take leave of their families. Cindy Sheehan (Rochelle Robinson), the mother of Pfc. Pat Sheehan (Danny Camp) accosts Kelly and his wife, demanding to know why the army is sending troops to Iraq. He patiently explains that they are going to spread peace and build the country. Kelly really seems to believe what he's saying. Sheehan wants to believe him and demands that he bring her son home alive. Kelly promises. 

Kelly's wife LeAnn (Sarah Wayne Callies) heads up the family support group ( Family Readiness Group ) aided by Gina Denomy (Bosworth) who is new to Ft. Hood. Their task is to keep the wives and families informed of what's going on with the troops and in the case of death or injury, to bring comfort and solace. LeAnn is strong and confident; she's been doing this for a long time. Gina has a newborn, seems to suffer from doubt and perhaps a little depression, but rises to the occasion.

You can go to the National Geographic website and get an overview through a series of trailers that show the high production quality and realism of the story of a battle that took the lives of eight soldiers and injured 65 others. If you watch the entire series, you will see the tragic and heroic decisions they had to make to survive.

The 1st Calvary Division was a band of brothers who took care of each other, and this is what Raddatz wants to covey. (She wrote for all the episodes with other co-writers.) But she does not sidestep the looming questions of the legitimacy of the invasion of Iraq, the horrors of war, causes of post-traumatic stress disorder, the suffering on the home front, and the creeping, deepening sense of death and loss to come. 

Mike Baumgarten (tactical military advisor) trains a cast soldier on set of "The Long Road Home" at U.S. Military post, Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas. (National Geographic/Jeremy Benning)

The series is honest. By including Cindy Sheehan , who became an anti-war activist after her son's death in Iraq, Raddatz questions the legitimacy of the war in Iraq, and rightly so. Yet this honesty includes the humanity and heroism of these men who believe they are there to do something good. The honest view of this tragedy, which the series allows, is that if any good did happen it was a miracle for this band of brothers that should never have been in this situation, in a senseless war that should never have happened.

Because the Army did not think there was any more danger from insurgents at the time, they did not send armored vehicles with the 1st Calvary Division to Iraq; the U.S. government believed it had won the hearts and minds of the people, but the government was wrong. When more troops were sent in riding in Humvees to rescue the troops who had been ambushed, neither the vehicles nor men were equipped with basic radios to communicate with each other. It was a disaster just waiting to happen.

If you choose to watch "The Long Road Home," be prepared to feel something of what the troops may have felt and experienced, from a joyful, patriotic send-off to tragic results. Staff Sgt. Robert Miltenberger (Sisto), who was older than most of the men, has had a premonition of death yet he continues on, cloaked in predestined doom. Sgt. Eric Bourquin (Jon Beavers) is the scary one; he seems to have a cruel streak and is suspicious of their interpreter. His character's "journey" throughout these eight hours is probably longer than what is depicted, and what happens with his character is deeply meaningful. 

This is a story as old as modern warfare and as cruel and nonsensical as most modern warfare has proven to be. A group of unassuming soldiers are trapped in a relatively small corner of hell; you can decide who was responsible for creating it. The characters will engage your empathy in numerous ways, true, but I was not uplifted by the series. It made me grieve the loss of so many thousands of U.S. military members and tens of thousands of local Iraqi people through "collateral damage."

The performances are strong; I especially liked Bonilla as Lt. Shane Aguero, the first soldier we meet. However, I thought that Callies' and Bosworth's characters lacked dimensionality.

This eight-part series mirrors the eight hours of the battle to free the 1st Calvary Division in Sadr City almost 14 years ago. Somehow, it seems all too present.

* An earlier version of this article misstated the number of scripted series National Geographic has produced.

[Sr. Rose Pacatte, a member of the Daughters of St. Paul, is the director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Los Angeles.]

Darius Homayoun-Jassim Al-Lani, right, with cast on set of "The Long Road Home" at U.S. Military post, Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas. (National Geographic/Van Redin)

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Our Infantry Colonel Who Reviews Movies: Hey, ‘The Long Road Home’ Actually Hits Home

By HunterJaeger6

Posted on Mar 1, 2018 3:00 PM EST

5 minute read

In 2007, news correspondent Martha Raddatz published  The Long Road Home  describing the events of April 4th, 2004 when 2-5 Cavalry assumed their mission in Sadr City, Iraq in the midst of a horrific ambush. Sadr City had been quiet for a year, the Shia population was waiting to see if the American occupation would work out on their behalf. The Shias had been much abused under Saddam Hussein’s regime and the city was a huge slum.

When the Coalition Provisional Authority, headed by Paul Bremer, made another brilliant decision to shutter the local newspaper for inciting violence against the coalition; the Shia population, under the direction of Moqtada al Sadr , decided to show the coalition what kind of violence they could incite.

A platoon escorting shit-sucking trucks was ambushed and LTC Volesky, the incoming unit commander, was faced with the alarming task of rescuing his surrounded soldiers. The battle raged, some dubious decisions were made, and eight U.S. soldiers died and somewhere between 65 and 70 were injured.

Related: The Soldier Who Led The Way In An Unarmored Humvee In The Battle Of Sadr City »

Raddatz tells a great story, and our own Tom Ricks blurbed both the front and back covers: “[ The Long Road Home ] shows how American troops sweat, bleed, and fight in the Iraq War. Read it.” I read it back in 2007 and it was one of many books that informed my decision-making when my unit deployed in 2008. One of the merits of the book is that presents the story of what happened to the soldiers and how it impacted their families back at Fort Hood, Texas.

When National Geographic Channel announced they would be hosting an eight-part mini-series adaptation of the book, I was intrigued but I had to save the show until I could give it the attention it deserved. I also re-read the book so I could measure one against the other.

The mini-series admirably adheres to the book and conveys the difficulties the soldiers and their families survived. Given a limited TV budget they did a, mostly, excellent job of building the Sadr City setting. They had substantial U.S. Army equipment support and most of the filming was done on post at Fort Hood. If you watch carefully, with a critical eye, there are moments that pull you out, but most are well done and casual viewers won’t notice. Contrast this with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk where the setting, uniforms, and equipment were extremely poorly implemented on a much larger big screen budget.

Indeed, only the combat vehicles in  The Long Road Home  often seem out of place, simply because they probably weren’t allowed to scuff them up too much. More CGI bullet holes, burn marks and body damage would have made up for things. Soldiers use generally decent tactics, though the bigger question of why anyone thought it was a good idea to go into the battle in  open LMTVs and unarmored HMMWVs – in a city of 2.5 million possible adversaries – goes beyond the TV show to reality itself. Guess you “go to war with the Army you have, not the one” you were forced to leave back at Fort Hood. (Only M1 tanks could finally break through to the surrounded platoon).

Related: ‘The Long Road Home’ Is Gritty, Authentic, And Army-Approved »

Each episode is named after one of the prime characters, and provides additional focus on each character, respectively. I found the episodes on interpreter Jassim and enlisted man Tomas Young to be the most moving. Neither story is prominently featured in the book. Jassim’s backstory may or may not be a reality, but Young’s is well known by other means so it’s mostly accurate. An unrealistic scene, where one LMTV and its complement of soldiers is lost and broken down, seems to be included for artistic license. It should have been left on the cutting room floor because it reminded me of the awful Hurt Locker movie.

Acting is merely serviceable throughout. There’s few familiar actors and fewer still reach a level much beyond soap opera quality. Lt. Aguero (E.J. Bonilla) and Sgt. Bourquin (Jon Beavers) acquitted themselves best. The real Bourquin was among the technical advisors for the film. The home front scenes also tend towards soapy material; but it’s treated with more care, far better than Army Wives .

Many of the episodes open with the gut-wrenching views of the overloaded aid station, and its piles of boots, helmets, and equipment. It’s stunning to think how this event is mostly forgotten now, at least by everyone who wasn’t there. The show is still available on On Demand and DVD. I highly recommend watching it.

‘HunterJaeger6’ is an Army Reserve infantry colonel. He’s been to Fort Hood and Iraq. His reviews have absolutely nothing to do with the Department of Defense.

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Long Road Home

Dove review.

“Long Road Home” is a movie about mending the family. This adventure-drama has some beautiful scenery set in 1977 in the Utah mountain area. Seth goes to live with the grandparents that he has never met until now. Due to a family difference Murdock, Seth’s grandfather, is unwilling to show the boy or tell him any information about his parents. But things happen that changes everything and helps to mend the fences on the “Long Road Home”.

Here is a family film like the ones that were watched in eras of the past. It is a story about repairing the damage that words and hurtful things sometimes cause in a family. If not mended, as the film points out, one might realize it sometimes too late. Seth and Murdock teach a lesson in this movie regarding the importance of love, kindness and forgiveness. It is a heartwarming movie for the entire family.

This movie is awarded the Dove “Family-Approved” Seal for all ages.

Dove Rating Details

A boy daydreams about a shoot-out in old west and killing a bear; Grizzle bear attacks a man; Grizzle bear is shot.

A young couple kisses.

Loss of parents; grandfather is unkind to young boy; young boy finds his grandmother has passed away; discussion regarding racial differences involving Native Americans.

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The Long Road Home

• E.J. Bonilla as Lt. Shane Aguero; Jon Beavers as Sgt. Eric Bourquin; Michael Kelly as Lt. Col. Gary Volesky; Jason Ritter as Capt. Troy Denomy; Kate Bosworth as Gina Denomy; Sarah Wayne Callies as LeAnn Volesky; Franklin Silverio as SPC Acevedo; Joshua Brennan as Sgt. Jackson; Jorge Diaz as Specialist Israel Garza; Joey Luthman as Specialist Jonathan Riddell; Jeremy Sisto as Sgt Robert Miltenberger; Darius Homayoun as Jassim Al-Lani
• National Geographic

TV Series Review

They came in peace. Really.

Not everyone in Sadr City, Iraq, believed that in the spring of 2004. Yes, the Americans had helped free the country from Saddam Hussein’s tyrany. He’d been gone for almost a year by then, yet the American army was still here—rumbling through the streets in its armored vehicles, rousting civilians and generally disrupting any possibility of anything returning to normal. To some Iraqis, these American liberators looked more like conquerors—oppressors here to take their oil, insult their religion and rob them of their newfound independence.

But for Lt. Col. Gary Volesky, there’s no question about what he’s there to do, no ambiguity. He and his men are there to keep the peace. To rebuild this little section of Iraq. To help the people there stand on their own and to leave behind a better place than when they arrived.

Sure, not everyone’s happy with the work they’re doing here. Sometimes, imams rail against the Americans in their Friday sermons. But to Volesky’s way of thinking, the only way to combat that is by making Sadr City more livable, day after day after day.

“All we can do is lead by example,” he tells one of his troops. “Every time we do something good here, it’s a beat of that drum. … People are going to see amazing things from us here.”

And so Volesky still believed April 4, 2004—Palm Sunday back in the states. In Sadr City, Iraq, the date came to be known by another name: Black Sunday.

Shattered Peace

National Geographic’s ambitious new miniseries is already spoiled: We know what happened. The Long Road Home is based on the bestselling book by ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz, and it chronicles in sometimes brutal detail the events in Sadr City on and around April 4. Eight Americans died that day (dozens more were injured), when a previously peaceful city erupted in violence. Countless Iraqis died April 4, too, and it was only the beginning. The fight around the region lasted, in some respects, for years afterward.

But the series does something that no news broadcast or Twitter update can effectively do: It gives us a view from the ground, and from home, of some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable.

Ultimately, Volesky’s the guy in charge. A man of deep faith, he plotted the (apparently) unsuccessful efforts to win the hearts and minds of the people there. Now he must lead a battle against a rebellion he never suspected was brewing—and save as many lives as he can.

But Volesky’s not the star of the show. Every episode is told, more or less, from the perspective of one of the men or women involved in the effort: from Lt. Shane Aguero, who led his small unit into the initial ambush; to Jassim Al-Lani, the Iraqi translator who may, or may not, be working with the enemy. Each character we see—most or all of whom appear to have a real-life counterpart—feels real and fully fleshed out for us.

Which makes it all the harder when that flesh begins to bleed.

‘There’s No Glory out There … Just Death and Rot’

The Long Road Home has already earned a great deal of praise, in part for its realism. It’s been called “ brutal ,” “ authentic ” and “ unflinching .” But even as secular reviewers suggest that all that realism helps make this series a must-see television event, it paradoxically makes it that much harder to watch, too.

Listen, the television landscape has no shortage of blood. We’ve seen it shed by the bucketful in Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead , and by the ludicrous vatful in American Horror Story .

But however involved we may become in those shows’ characters, and however realistic the directors try to make the carnage look, we know that what we’re watching is fiction .

The Long Road Home , while obviously a dramatization, looks and feels inherently different. Perhaps it’s because we know that the action we see on screen was based on real events, and that the people we watch die represent real individuals. Perhaps it’s because Nat Geo takes special care to introduce us to these characters—to their lives and their families and their friends on the front lines, who cry and grieve and rage.

And yet for as dear as life feels, it’s often treated cavalierly in Sadr City. When a young soldier kills his first man, a comrade reminds him that in Iraq, life is cheap. He recalls seeing a dead man in a car one day, “flies crawling out of his eyeballs and nostrils. Not one person cared enough to stop.”

The language is also enough to stop many would-be viewers, too. Again, Nat Geo is aiming for realism here, and the multitude of profanities are likely about what we’d hear in the barracks and the battlefield. But that doesn’t make them any easier to hear.

But for all those real negatives, The Long Road Home offers a more rewarding sort of realism, too. These soldiers aren’t perfect. Many are deeply flawed. And yet we see in them a certain purpose and idealism that, I think, would ring true for many a serviceman and woman watching. The show also gives us a glimpse of something even more rare: an indication how important faith is to many of our characters. I don’t know if I’ve seen more sincere prayers in any show as I saw in The Long Road Home’ s first two hours.

National Geographic’s miniseries can be messy, brutal and grim. But for some viewers, it may offer value in the messy truths it gives.

Episode Reviews

The long road home: nov. 7, 2017 “black sunday/the eye of the storm”.

Lt. Shane Aguero commands a unit of soldiers newly deployed as peacekeepers to Sadr City, Iraq. It’s a relatively safe assignment: Sadr City is one of Iraq’s success stories in early 2004. But all that changes when some Iraqis attack in a well-organized uprising, ambushing Aguero’s unit on just its fourth day in-country.

One man gets killed in the ambush, but he doesn’t die immediately. We see a bloody hole in his gut and glimpse his blood-covered body. When an apparatus designed to facilitate breathing is stuck in his mouth and CPR is administered, blood pulses upwards through it. When he dies, Aguero—a Catholic who admits having not attended Mass in a while—says a prayer over the body. “I pray that You may take him into Your arms, dear Lord,” he says. “Allow him entry into Your paradise that his soul may rest in peace.”

That’s not the only prayer we hear: Col. Volesky prays as well, and the two-part episode closes with a chaplain offering a Christian prayer. Bibles are toted. Crosses, rosaries and good luck charms are worn. We see women wearing full-length hijabs, and a tense confrontation takes place outside a mosque. Back at home, spouses and children attend a Palm Sunday service, where we hear more prayers. A departing soldier and his family sit at a table and say grace.

Elsewhere, we flash-forward to a scene filled with injured, groaning and screaming men. Blood and bandages are everywhere. The camera shows men with missing limbs. Iraqis also are shot and killed. One Iraqi lies lifeless in the street, as his shooter stares at the body and considers what he’s done. “They made me into a killer,” the boy says. “I hope they’re happy.” A boy with a grotesquely injured foot (we see a big chunk of flesh missing from the bloody injury) hops over to some American soldiers to get help. We hear lots of gunfire and see plenty of fire and explosions.

We hear about 15 s-words. Other profanities include “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—,” “p—ies” and “p-ss.” A joke relies on the last name “Fokker.” God’s name is misused three times.

Soldiers clean out an open sewer: One of them, overwhelmed by the smell, vomits. Several soldiers look forward to a Dungeons and Dragons game. A new soldier freaks out when one of his pals puts a (harmless) whip scorpion on him. A couple of soldiers smoke cigarettes.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Tv streaming | bay area heat advisory extended through friday, tv streaming, tv streaming | ‘the long road home’ review: military miniseries a must-see, powerful eight-part saga recounts, in harrowing detail, the events of ‘black sunday’ in iraq.

None of them, however, can match the emotional oomph of “The Long Road Home,”  a captivating — and harrowing — true story of bravery, love and sacrifice.

Based on a best-seller by ABC News journalist Martha Raddatz and airing on the National Geographic Channel, the eight-part miniseries recounts the incidents surrounding an event in Iraq that came to be known as “Black Sunday.”

In April 2004, a small platoon of American soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division was patrolling the streets of Sadr City, an impoverished region of Baghdad. They had no reason to suspect trouble. After all, Saddam Hussein had been captured, and nearly a year had passed since President Bush delivered his “Mission Accomplished” speech. They were simply involved with peacekeeping duties in an area considered to be “the safest place in Iraq.”

“If there’s a gun going off over there,” says Lt. Shane Aguero (E.J. Bonilla), “it’s probably just some fool celebrating a Cowboys game.”

But on that fateful day, all hell suddenly broke loose. The platoon was ambushed by a group of insurgents firing from rooftops, balconies and back alleys. After a frantic gunfight, the ill-equipped soldiers somehow managed to take refuge in a residence. But they were trapped there without GPS tracking and forced to wait it out for rescue convoys to arrive.

Well-paced and handsomely crafted, “The Long Road Home” keeps you on edge during the tension-filled gun battles in Iraq. But the show’s most indelible achievement is the way it immerses viewers in the heads and hearts of not only the soldiers, but the spouses and children anxiously waiting for news back home in Fort Hood, Texas.

Through a series of deft flashbacks, we truly get to know these characters as people. Their panic and desperation is deeply felt. And as we watch from the comfort of our couches, we’re reminded once again of the struggles and sacrifices that military families confront on a daily basis.

“The Long Road Home” features only a handful of recognizable actors — including Jason Ritter, Jeremy Sisto, Sarah Wayne Callies and Michael Kelly. But there are potent performances up and down the cast.

You get the sense that these actors knew they were involved in something incredibly honorable. So they dug deep and brought an extra surge of passion to their roles.

Their commitment certainly shows.

Contact Chuck Barney at [email protected]. Follow him at Twitter.com/chuckbarney and Facebook.com/bayareanewsgroup.chuckbarney.

‘THE LONG ROAD HOME’

When: 9 p.m., Nov. 7

Where: National Geographic Channel

Grade: 3 ½ stars

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The Long Road Home (2017)

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THE LONG ROAD HOME

"soldiers with incredible courage and faith".

What You Need To Know:

More Detail:

THE LONG ROAD HOME is a dramatic TV miniseries from the National Geographic Channel premiering November 7th, 2017 that follows American forces in Sadr, Iraq in 2004 who are ambushed by Islamic militants and face extreme odds to survive. A fantastic cast helps make this TV series radiate with hope, faith and courage. THE LONG ROAD HOME will leave viewers grateful for the sacrifices made by our armed forces.

Based on a true story, the TV series follows the 1st Calvary Division as they try to help build Sadr, Iraq after Sadam Hussein was ousted from power. The soldiers are good men with virtuous intentions to help the locals, but it becomes clear that many of the locals don’t want the soldiers there. One day while helping some civilians, the division’s convoy is ambushed, and they’re forced to take shelter and wait for backup. However, it becomes clear it’s going to be much harder to get reinforcements than they thought.

The first episode of THE LONG ROAD HOME is seen from the perspective of Lt. Shane Aguero. It shows his family life back in Fort Hood, Texas. Aguero has a young son and daughter, and his son clearly is having difficulty with the thought of his father being gone for a year because he’s acting out angrily. Aguero ensures his son and his wife that he’ll be fine in Iraq, because Sadr is considered the safest city in the country. Little does he know that he’ll be battling for his life and the life of his men.

The second episode is seen from the perspective of Lt. General Gary Volesky, a committed Christian whose wife Lean (Sarah Wayne Callies) helps lead the Gold Star families support group at Fort Hood. Volesky has never lost a man under his leadership. So, he promises the loved ones of his soldiers that he’ll keep them safe and bring them back. Back in Iraq when the convoy is under attack, Volesky is at the base trying to find every way he can to get his men safely back to headquarters.

THE LONG ROAD HOME has strong actors throughout, and some intense action sequences that keep the jeopardy high. From a dramatic and written standpoint, it’s not as intense as a movie like AMERICAN SNIPER, but for a TV series, it’s exciting and powerful. Best of all, the show, especially in the second episode, has very strong Christian content. Volesky exhibits a strong faith and prays many times throughout the episode. In fact, it may be one of the strongest portrayals of faith on TV this year!

The TV series is also strongly patriotic. While a younger Iraqi man shows his disdain for the Americans, the young man’s father actually says he’s grateful to the Americans for taking down the brutal Iraqi dictator Sadam Hussein. It honors the sacrifice of the men who fought and died, and treats them as the heroes they are.

The first two episodes of THE LONG ROAD HOME have some intense war violence and a smattering of foul language (mostly “s” and “h” words). So, caution is advised for older children.

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‘the long road home’: tv review.

'The Long Road Home,' a NatGeo miniseries about the Iraq War, revisits "Black Sunday" through the eyes of various veterans.

By Inkoo Kang

Television Critic

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Fourteen years after President George W. Bush ordered the first bombs on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as part of that country’s invasion, the general consensus is that that ongoing conflict should never have been started and that Bush’s stated goal of “regime change” was an arrogant, blood-soaked folly. Set in 2004, NatGeo’s The Long Road Home gives voice to an early version of the protest against the war when the mother of a deploying soldier asks his superior why the military has invaded Iraq if the perpetrators of 9/11 are suspected to be in Afghanistan.

Based on ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz’s book of the same name, The Long Road Home dramatizes a siege in Sadr City that came to be known as Black Sunday. How we understand the deaths of both American servicemen and Iraqi civilians during that event depends on how we interpret the Iraq War. It’s unsurprising yet frustrating, then, that the miniseries mostly brushes aside the questions of the American military’s occupation of Iraq to more effectively cast the troops in a heroic and celebratory light.

Air date: Nov 07, 2017

That depoliticization lands The Long Road Home somewhere between an earnest brochure and a proper drama. The mini is a lavish production, with chases, cityscapes, tanks and explosions vying for attention. But I kept finding myself more often wondering what the characters made of their mission — which was sold to them as humanitarian peacekeeping — than absorbed in the umpteenth firefight between soldiers and insurgents.

On a routine surveillance run around the city (with an automated cannon towering out of the humvee roof), Lt. Shane Aguero (E.J. Bonilla ) and the two squads he’s leading are ambushed by heavily armed rebels. His team holes up in an Iraqi home and is forced to take its family of four hostage. Initially saddled with a baldly manipulative prelude about leaving behind his extremely photogenic children, Bonilla proves a fantastic anchor of a sprawling tale with his level-headed, slightly dorky presence. Shane is both relatable and inspirational, a D&D fan who has to keep his smartest but most aggressive soldier (Jon Beavers) in line to ensure that there aren’t any unnecessary deaths on an already grisly and panic-stricken night.

The second squad is headed by Sgt. Robert Miltenberger (Jeremy Sisto ), a Kosovo vet haunted by war’s savagery who doesn’t let his fatalism keep him from protecting his brothers in uniform. His grim austerity is contrasted by the bored flippancy with which the younger soldiers meet their tasks. One grouses about the Iraqis’ ingratitude toward the American peacekeepers. Another scoffs that it’s no wonder the insurgents fear death so little; what would you have to live for if you lived in Sadr City? A third resents being made into a killer. The soldiers ask each other — rhetorically, then not so rhetorically — whether they could shoot a child. A pair of young dads (Jorge Diaz and Ian Quinlan ) horse around, barely grown up themselves. The nervous, soul-sustaining chatter — funny, bro-y and sometimes deeply uncomfortable — makes for some of the miniseries’ best written scenes.

Far less compelling is the activity back at the base. Michael Kelly and Jason Ritter give the production its obligatory boldface names, but their roles are relatively small and, in the overall scheme of things, pretty insignificant. As the title implies, Long Road Home takes some time to pull the squads back in from danger. The multi-step rescue operation is somewhat hard to follow, robbing the series of tension it could certainly use more of. The rising number of wounds among the soldiers and the steady depletion of ammo gin up some urgency, but too many scenes force us to wait alongside the men for intervention without learning enough about who they are. 

Each of Long Road Home’ s eight episodes focuses on a different character, with extensive, Orange Is the New Black -like flashbacks fleshing out backstories. Two hours stand out for their intensely moving narratives: the fifth, “The Choice,” which focuses on the Iraqi interpreter Jassim (Darius Homayoun ), and the sixth, “A City Called Heaven,” which follows Army enlistee Tomas Young (Noel Fisher) before and after Black Sunday, through his tragic journey from newlywed soldier to unhappily married paralyzed veteran. (Young later became a well known anti-war activist and the subject of the 2007 documentary Body of War .)

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Through Jassim’s eyes, we see the transition of Iraq from brutal dictatorship to cruelty-filled chaos, as well as the constant trauma of ordinary Iraqis caught between pie-in-the-sky ideologies. The choice that his episode’s title refers to — choosing a side as hostilities escalate between the American “invaders” and the kamikaze -ready fanatics of his hometown — is the miniseries’ most wrenching moment by far and speaks to the emotional and political complexity and skill that the writers had at their disposal but only sometimes utilize.

Rarely would I argue for less screen time for female characters, but part of Long Road Home’ s significant bloat stems from the lengthy and repetitive scenes we’re shown of the quietly suffering wives of Fort Hood, played by Kate Bosworth, Sarah Wayne Callies and Karina Ortiz. The men are audacious; the women worry and pray. That archetypal blandness highlights the specificity of Tomas’ story all the more, especially in its candor about the romantic and sexual challenges of marriage after serious injury. Tomas’ wife (Sarah Ramos) might be right in pointing out (to this fictional version, at least) that the veteran hasn’t figured out how to enjoy life in a wheelchair. But Tomas speaks for a lot of veterans who feel that the military doesn’t do enough to help wounded veterans.

After such a long wait, the rescue of the surviving soldiers is strangely anticlimactic. The refusal of pyrotechnics seems deliberate; the mini would prefer to focus on the troops’ homecoming (or not) to a flashy display of action-hero firepower. But for the most part, The Long Road Home would rather stick to stock scenes and manipulative sympathy-seeking that add up to “support the troops” messaging than tell messily human stories. Thus it is the latest pop-culture military production to fail to understand that you can powerfully do both.

Cast: Michael Kelly, Jason Ritter, Kate Bosworth, Sarah Wayne Callies, Jeremy Sisto, Noel Fisher, Jon Beavers, E. J. Bonilla, Darius Homayoun Created by: Mikko Alanne Premieres: Tuesday, 9 p.m. ET/PT, in a special two-hour debut; then moves to 10 p.m. on Nov. 14 (NatGeo)

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The long road home.

Directed by Craig Clyde

The thrilling true story of a boy and his grandfather, and the amazing challenge they faced together

After his mother dies, twelve-year-old Seth George moves to his grandparents' farm. His grumpy grandfather Murdock harbors a grudge against Seth's Native American father, who died when Seth was a baby, and passes this grudge on to him. Seth's grandmother was fond of him, but she soon passes away. Seth struggles with his grandfather's harshness while trying to win the heart of the charming Annie Jacobs.

Michael Ansara T.J. Lowther Sandra Shotwell Mary Elizabeth Winstead Al Harrington Craig Clyde Joyce Cohen Billy Oscar K.C. Clyde Tara Taylor Charles Hutchins

Director Director

Craig Clyde

Producers Producers

Bryce W. Fillmore Ray Tremblay

Writer Writer

Editor editor.

Lori Petersen Waite

Cinematography Cinematography

Gary Eckert

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

J. David Gowdy Wayne Lewis

Composer Composer

Majestic Entertainment

Releases by Date

01 apr 1999, releases by country.

• Premiere NR WorldFest Houston

91 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Matt ★★½

Winstead's first film so I had to see it even though it was like watching something through a potato, good ol' 360p. She was about 13 and even then had loads of confidence, even if the film itself was a bit of a slog and proper weird at times, a few ultra-bizarre dream sequences and the old fella being an absolute nob to the main lad for no real reason. And check out that masterpiece of a poster 😎

Review by aalyxx ★★½

Watched a 2 hours movie just to see like 10 minutes of Mary, yeehaw

Review by maskull ★★★

A kid heads to his grandparent's farm after his mother passes away. He learns about feeding calves, herding cattle, and romancing Mary Elizabeth Winstead (her first movie role!). His grandpa is extremely grouchy and his grandma should have a big DEAD sign floating above her head, but the boy overcomes all, learns about his heritage, has weird fantasies, rescues his grandfather after a grizzly attack, and eventually grows close to the racist old man.

Seriously though, the grandpa is a total jerk to the kid. Probably deserved the grizzly attack. But he has an absolutely wonderful voice. I could listen to that dude talk all day long!

Review by ‮𐦍‬ ★★½

i bought this on DVD at walmart in 2009 and im convinced im the only person whos ever seen it

Review by Christina Erickson ½

The next door neighbor was like, super hot.

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Long Road Home Reviews

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Earthy depiction of Depression-era America set in California's San Joaquin Valley. Mark Harmon. Bessie: Lee Purcell. Jake: Morgan Weisser. Wardlow: Leon Russom. James Earl: Timothy Owen. Susie: Bianca Rose. Clara: Vinessa Shaw. Billy Jo: Kathy Morris. Mary Ellen: Sarah Lundy. Produced by Norman Rosemont ("The Secret Garden"). Directed by John Korty.

A Texas family who lost everything during the Great Depression seeks to have a home of their own once again in this predictable drama. The Robertsons go from farm camp to farm camp, picking crops for a nickel per basket. Dad Ertie (Mark Harmon) is a former rodeo star, clearly degraded by migrant life, and unable to provide for his brood of eight. At El Adobe the family is paid in brass coins, which they can only use at the camp. Ertie demands cash and is promptly fired. "They ain't lettin' me work nor be a man," he laments. He is unable to save the life of the youngest Robertson girl, who dies of diphtheria. The Robertsons' suffering contrasts with the greedy pleasure that Depression entrepreneur Titus Wardlow (Leon Russom) enjoys as he keeps the unorganized farm workers down. Hope for the family seems embodied by Bessie (Lee Purcell), Ertie's wife, determined to finding a permanent home. They find a place that's little more than a shack, and is still more than the Robertsons can afford. At a union-friendly farm camp, Ertie's target-shooting wins a little money to put towards the house. Meanwhile, union activists rise up in protest when one of their men is shot in the back by Wardlow. Ertie's teenaged son Jake (Morgan Weisser) wants to join the union, against his cowed father's wishes. To thwart the labor movement, Titus arrives with a doctor and nurse to uncover health violations as an excuse to torch the workers' tents. The experts judge the camp up to code, but Titus sets fire to it anyway. This sends Ertie over the edge. He fights with Titus who nearly kills him. Jake saves his father's life by shooting Titus dead. Ultimately, the Robertsons move into their own home and finally sit down under one roof to eat a real dinner together. Though based on a book by Ronald B. Taylor, this comes across like a Cliff's Notes version of John Ford's adaptation of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. It fails to provide any characters real enough to care about, just morsels about Ertie's bronc-bustin' days and his attachment to his gun--but no meat, nothing of depth. Mark Harmon gives a whiny performance that only engages when he is suddenly motivated enough to take action. THE LONG ROAD HOME was made for cable TV in 1991 and was released on video in 1996. (Violence.)

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The Long Road Home Reviews

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Screen Rant

Road house director addresses release criticism as new movie comes direct to streaming.

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The Instigators Review: Matt Damon's Apple TV+ Comedy Is At Its Best When It's Not Action-Focused

Sam elliott’s return to 35-year-old action franchise seems way more likely after confirmed sequel to $85m hit, tom hardy & aaron taylor-johnson join james bond director to adapt popular crime thriller.

Road House director Doug Liman sets the record straight about his feelings regarding streaming services, particularly with his latest film, The Instigators, being newly released on Apple TV+. Road House is a remake of the 1989 film of the same name that stars Patrick Swayze. The 2024 version stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an ex-UFC fighter who takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys road house. The Prime Video release was steeped in controversy following a contentious op-ed Liman wrote stating that Amazon doesn’t care about cinema.

Liman was displeased with Road House going directly to streaming, which is exactly what his newest film is doing. The Instigators, which stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, only earned a limited theatrical release before debuting on Apple TV+ in August. In a recent interview with Empire magazine, Liman clarified his feelings towards Road House ’s release in light of his newest film’s streaming debut. It mostly came down to the expectations the filmmaker had for Road House . He said:

Well, Road House I made for MGM. Wasn't a streaming company, and it got bought by Amazon and they changed course on me. Instigators, I made for Apple. The reality is, I've never had an issue with streaming movies. Other than what happened during the release, Road House was such a positive experience, and Instigators has been a positive experience every step along the way. And I'm the last person in the world to criticise anyone for putting something on streaming. Nobody went to see Swingers outside of a small group in New York and LA. And then Disney Home Video stepped in and said, "We think Miramax screwed up and that this could be a big movie." So they gave it a massive push. My whole career launched with people watching Swingers at home.

The Instigators isn't as slick as a Guy Ritchie flick, though it's cut from a similar cloth, but Matt Damon and Casey Affleck make it a fun ride.

What Really Happened With Road House’s Release

Liman reportedly chose the streaming release when faced with a bigger budget.

Following Liman’s Deadline op-ed, a report was released that revealed the truth behind the Road House streaming deal. Within the report, the biggest takeaway was that Liman and Gyllenhaal were offered a $60 million budget with a theatrical release, or an $85 million budget with a streaming release. According to the report, the director and star chose the second option.

Originally, Road House was presented to MGM, but when Amazon bought MGM, things changed. A streaming release wasn't discussed when Liman initially thought the film would belong to a movie studio. In his op-ed, he wrote that Amazon told him the release of Road House would depend on the final product he delivered. He said his film tested extremely well with audiences, which made him feel like it should get a theatrical release. Despite that, it was released exclusively to Prime Video. Luckily, though, it became a success.

Gyllenhaal is slated to return for Road House 2 at Amazon MGM, which is currently in development.

Liman's differing responses to Road House and The Instigators ' individual releases make sense when considering the circumstances under which both movies were made. Though Liman reportedly opted to take the larger budget for Road House despite the streaming caveat, it wasn't what he initially thought he was getting into. Thankfully, though, he holds no ill-will towards the overall production, which bodes well for the in-development sequel. Liman is not yet confirmed to return, but as the original director, he is likely a strong contender.

Source: Empire Magazine

Road House (2024)

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Road House is a remake of the original 1989 film, which followed protagonist Dalton, a Ph.D. educated bouncer at the roughest bar in the south known as the Double Deuce. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Dalton, with two major changes including Dalton being a retired UFC fighter and the bar locale being in the Florida Keys.