It took me a long time to learn to appreciate films about Vietnam. I was a child of the 1950s, and I grew up with the mostly jingoistic studies of that era: "To Hell and Back," "The Sands of Iwo Jima," "God Is My Copilot," "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," "Sergeant York," "Back to Bataan," "Objective, Burma!" and so on.

These war films of my childhood were, generally speaking, actioned-oriented. Only a few of them - "All Quiet on the Western Front," "The Best Years of Our Lives" - asked questions bigger that those involving courage, loyalty and the obligations of duty.

The Vietnam films, though, were different. They did ask those questions. In the '60s, most of us did. And it made the films more ... difficult. Easier to appreciate as art, maybe, but hard to embrace emotionally. Did I want to put my arms around "The Deer Hunter," for example, or "Apocalypse Now"? Not really. Same for "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July," "Go Tell the Spartans" and "Hamburger Hill."

And when Vietnam films did come along that were designed in the style of the older movies, they felt false. Three words: "The Green Berets."

All of which leads us to the films of today, those dealing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been a handful of them: "In the Valley of Elah," "Three Kings," "Jarhead," "Stop-Loss," "Lions for Lambs," "Rendition," "Generation Kill," "The Hurt Locker" and so on. With exception of those final two, the best films out of these twin conflicts have been documentaries: "Gunner Palace," "Control Room," along with all the anti-war studies such as "Standard Operating Procedure" and "No End in Sight."

And filmmakers keep trying. The latest entry, which is playing in Spokane, is "Brothers," a narrative film that is based on the 2004 Danish film about a soldier sent to Afghanistan, the family he leaves behind, his capture by the Taliban and presumed death, the closeness that develops between his brother and his wife, the horrible thing he does to save his life and then his return home to the private hell that only he is aware of.

I can forgive Susanne Bier, the Danish filmmaker who originally dreamed up the story that became these two films, for making a film about another screwed-up soldier. Seems the Iraq-Afghanistan veteran has take taken the place of the proverbial "crazed Vietnam veteran." I can also forgive the movies for resorting to cinematic shorthand by explaining away the soldier's predicament on a timely coincidence (the destruction of a camcorder).

And since I can do those things, I can then say that "Brothers" is one of the better of the Iraq-Afghanistan war films. While my favorites remain the HBO-produced "Generation Kill" and the on-the-ground study "The Hurt Locker," I was caught up by the acting in "Brothers." Tobey Maguire ("Spider-Man") is appropriately intense as the soldier, but Jake Gyllenhaal is surprisingly good as the bad brother who changes, Natalie Portman is their match as the grieving/struggling widow/wife and Sam Shepard is excellent as the hard-ass Marine Corps dad whose own weaknesses only complicate the situation.

Equally excellent is the performance by 10-year-old Bailee Madison, the girl who plays the older daughter. This is a pre-teen performance that defines the best in youth acting.

So, all in all, I think "Brothers" is an effective drama. I'm not sure it adds much to what we already know about soldier-to-civilian transition, and I'm fairly certain it's going to disappear the same way that so many of the other contemporary war films have. The war is still too much of a presence for us to look at it with any sense of real appreciation. Or understanding.

That's always been the case, though. One of the best World War II films ever made was "Saving Private Ryan." And it came a half-century after the fact.

The difference here? It looks as if our current wars are never going to end.

Below: The trailer for the original Danish version of "Brothers."

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