Product Description
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Taking Chance
Based on the true experiences of Lt. Colonel Michael Strobl, who
wrote eloquently of them in a widely circulated 2004 article,
Taking Chance is a profoundly emotional look at the
rituals taken to honor its war dead, as represented by a fallen
Marine killed in Iraq, Lance Corporal Chance Phelps. Working as a
strategic analyst at Marine Corps Base Quantico in VA, Lt. Col.
Strobl (Kevin Bacon) learns that Phelps had once lived in his
hometown, and volunteers to escort the body to its final resting
place in Wyoming. As Strobl journeys across America, he discovers
the great diligence and dignity in how the , and all
those involved with preparing and transporting the body, handle
their duties. Equally important, he encounters hundreds of people
affected by Chances death, a vast majority of whom never knew
him. This collective grieving eventually causes Lt. Col. Strobl,
a veteran of Desert Storm now assigned to office duty, to probe
his own guilt about not re-deploying to Iraq for the current
conflict. Arriving in Wyoming, Lt. Col. Strobl completes his
catharsis when he encounters Chances gracious family and friends,
and discovers an extraordinary outpouring of community support.
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The made-for-HBO Taking Chance is based on perhaps the single
most moving artifact to come out of the Second Gulf War, Lt. Col.
Mike Strobl's first-person narrative of his voluntary mission
escorting the body of a fellow Marine killed in Iraq. Strobl
(played in the film by Kevin Bacon) hadn't known Lance Cpl.
Chance Phelps but, noticing they'd been born in the same western
town, he requested temporary leave from his duties as a
manpower-deployment analyst at Quantico in order to accompany the
20-year-old's body home. Home, as it turned out, was no longer
their shared birthplace in Colorado but the high-country Wyoming
town of Dubois. The journey would take Strobl deep into the heart
of his nation, and his own heart as well. There's no overstating
the power and beauty of what he encountered: one instance after
another of not just personnel but airline employees,
passengers, and bystanders doing honor--mostly wordlessly--to
Chance's coffin and his escort as they passed by. First-time
director Ross Katz deserves credit for declining to inflate any
of these moments or underscore their meaning with grandiloquent
speechifying, and Bacon--an actor who couldn't hit a false note
if his life depended on it--is true to the Desert Storm veteran's
self-discipline and emotional discretion. The picture's decency
is unimpeachable, and Strobl's story, transcending pro-war and
anti-war politics, is itself an act of healing. What's missing is
the seasoned hand of a great director (Ang Lee, say) to invest it
with the rhythm and movement of a fully achieved feature film.
Still, this is a journey you'll feel enriched by sharing.
--Richard T. Jameson
On the DVD
Several somewhat overlapping short videos offer testimony to
Chance Phelps's fun-loving spirit, heroic death, and spiritual
legacy by his family, friends, and fellow Marines. They're good
people. There's also a brief deleted scene--actually, portion of
a scene--and some not particularly illuminating commentary on the
making of the film. --Richard T. Jameson