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Best movie of this year hands down!

Too much of everything

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This Film is recommended for those who want to find out about PTSD and don't have a clue what this thing is, just that returning Soldiers suffer from this "Disease". Problem is after viewing this almost unbearably Melodramatic and manipulative Movie you might start developing symptoms of your own. It is that depressing.Do we really need a Cancerous Mother, a traumatized, possible cheating Wife, a job in a Slaughterhouse with graphic bloodletting, a paraplegic Comrade who lets go a ridiculous metaphor, insensitive Family Members and co-workers, a standoffish and selfish Friend from his Platoon in Iraq, all to illustrate in-adaptability? There are more understated, over the top inclusions. This is all so heavy handed while pretending not to be.This is blunt, pounding away without consideration for even the slightest bit of elation to enter this exercise in despair. If you are hit in the head enough times, even with a soft object, the result is a numbness. So it defeats the purpose to inspire awareness to the subject at hand and tragically the audience becomes Collateral Damage.

A ponderous message-movie that is pretty-much all drama (there is very little "lite" here). The Dry Land is a story of an Iraq war vet returning home to rural western Texas to the loving arms of his wife (America Ferrera -- TV's "Ugly Betty", Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) only to realize he cannot make things "right" in his mind with what occurred on the other side of the world.He meets fellow soldiers and friends and tries to make peace; but the film depicts the folly of war. None of the actors do a poor job on this film and the subject matter is important. The Dry Land is a film one hates to criticize or put-down as I am afraid the criticism will be misconstrued. My problem(s) with the film are not the war or the actors on the screen ... this is simply an "average film" from an un-proved director (this is Ryan Piers Williams' first full-length production).Humans aren't made to be killing machines without something inside each of us changing. For a brief time, it felt as if this was going to be yet another retread of the Americanized version of the Danish film Brothers; but it eventually steered itself into a different direction which was good. Saying that -- there really isn't much else to discuss about this quiet film.Like it's title suggests ... the story doesn't meander like a river -- it is just all-out and flat. There is an expanse of land to look at and take in -- and that is what this film is all about. Look at war. Look at its problems. Look at its "solutions". Look at us. Look ...

For his first feature-length film, The Dry Land writer-director, Ryan Piers Williams, portrayed the unraveling affects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder with equal measure of grit and grace. Ryan O'Nan plays James, a solider returning from the war in Iraq, with both restraint and credible volatility. Initially, the film appears to be checking off the returning warrior clichés: heartfelt airport terminal reunion, an awkward return to intimacy with the wife, reentry to a mundane job, and an alcohol fueled tussle with a smart-mouthed townie. But as James begins to wrestle with a critical missing part of his recollection of Iraq, the film makes a decidedly introspective turn toward the reality of PTSD.This Sundance-nominee was able not only to capture a certain authenticity of the returning soldier, Williams also provides a parable of brokenness, self-destruction, and the isolation of the one whose wounds are hidden to his community. As James reaches out to his Army buddies in hopes to fill in the empty parts of his memory, he only finds more brokenness among them. Many who have never worn a uniform can relate to the elusive redemption we seek from others.At my screening, there was some difference of reaction regarding the climatic final scene. Some were disappointed in the lack of Hollywood-style triumph. But as the rain poured down on the "dry land" of James' El Paso landscape, the viewer is not left without the hope of healing from trauma and despair.

I am a combat Veteran who was seriously wounded in Baghdad, Iraq on April 26, 2004. I had the opportunity to view The Dry Land at the Dallas International Film Festival in April this year. I think the movie does an excellent job portraying some of the issues that may occur when a combat Veteran comes home. Each one of us has a different experience of war and react differently when we come back home and try to fit back into normalcy. It can be difficult to accept that life back home may be different then prior to our deployment and the fact that our friends and family view us differently too. I think The Dry Land is spot on in every aspect of the movie and I want to thank all of the actors & actresses for their involvement and especially the Director and Screenwriter Ryan Piers Williams.