William Hart Pitsenbarger inspired The Last Full Measure. Pitsenbarger, a US Air Force Pararescueman, died in the Vietnam War and is considered a hero for single-handedly saving sixty men. This film starts in 1999 and focuses on fictional civilian Pentagon staffer Scott Huffman (Sebastian Stan) who investigated whether Pitsenbarger’s award for the Air Force Cross should be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. The investigation becomes a healing journey for the investigator and the people that he interviews so they can confront their trauma, heal, and move forward.
The Last Full Measure is a deeply flawed movie in terms of narrative structure, but it still works because the ensemble cast portrays authentic human emotion in each scene. Huffman is a trope whom the director and writer Todd Robinson keeps blank enough so the protagonist can act as an audience surrogate for us to project our feelings on to. Neither the viewer nor the protagonist knows anything about Pitsenberger or the men that he saved. We enter the film with other priorities. Like the protagonist, we gradually get interested and immersed in the story until we are moved and completely invested in Pitsenbarger getting the Medal of Honor.
Robinson uses several ticking clock storylines to create a sudden sense of urgency about this investigation, which is a wise choice considering that it occurs decades after Pitsenbarger’s death. The investigator has reached a turning point in his life and career, but this assignment forces him to divert energy to a thankless project. The investigator and his interviewees are initially hostile because the latter can sense his lack of interest. Robinson lays this dynamic on a little thick. People can often be hostile for no reason at all and considering that the interviewees are all suffering from PTSD, we do not need to make Huffman so transparently disinterested. Huffman is a well-respected professional, a mover and shaker, so hopefully he can put on a good face when in public and visiting his interviewees at their homes. Robinson does so because the movie is not about Pitsenbarger but is about the struggle for men’s souls.
Robinson keeps having characters state that Huffman is an amoral career focused person, which Robinson never actually shows. At the beginning of The Last Full Measure, we do witness that when he must choose between his family and his job, he chooses his job, and his family accepts this facet of his personality, but there is no other evidence that he cares more about his career than his humanity. Huffman acts as an excuse for various thespians playing Vietnam vets or the vet’s family members to have a reason to monologue about the past.
For much of the film, Huffman is the least interesting person on screen. Sebastian Stan is a solid actor, but even he cannot do more with an underwritten character. Stan’s job is to take a back seat to Bradley Whitford, William Hurt, Christopher Plummer, Diane Ladd, Samuel L. Jackson, Amy Madigan, Peter Fonda, Ed Harris and John Savage. If Huffman was a more developed character than a man with a wife and kids who wants high-level job security, these scenes would even be better.
Though one-sided, these scenes still resonate. These veteran actors chew the scenery but are not so over the top that their performance becomes open to ridicule. Each character is uniquely out of step in the present because trauma has frozen them in the past. One resides in isolation. Another only moves around at night. To appear functional, one vet visits the shooting range before work, and when viewers find out what he does, it is the most humorous part of the film. One seems fine but is barely holding it together and helps others so he does not have to face himself. Huffman recognizes his pain in theirs and realizes that all of them lack what Pitsenberger had: a sense of self-worth, fearlessness, and mission. They unite over the mission of getting the Medal of Honor for Pitsenberger. To do so, they become vulnerable and expose what they consider their worst selves. By telling and hearing their stories, they form a community and are no longer ashamed. When the listener does not shrink in horror from them after hearing their stories and validates their past actions, they recover their self-worth, which emboldens them to be fearless in their mission and their engagement with each other.
It was puzzling to me why Robinson made Huffman so unaware of himself though he was a seasoned career man and already a father of one son, but parallel to the vets, he functioned. He did not live. The Last Full Measure uses Pitsenbarger as a catalyst for redemption in life and death so men can learn to live fully. Trauma is a mental battlefield that one cannot escape unless a person recognizes that they are still stuck there. Fighting for Pitsenbarger helps each man have that shared epiphany.
The Last Full Measure gains momentum and never lags after the one hour twenty-six-minute mark. When Huffman reveals his backstory, Stan makes it work even though it is another trope. Sans dialogue, throughout the film, Stan lays the emotional groundwork for this revelation by visibly projecting pain, discomfort and trauma. This acting choice made me wonder why he felt such kinship to their trauma. The use of wardrobe also reflects his character development from suit to leather jackets and no ties. Who hurt him? What motivates him to be a mover and shaker? How do Vietnam vets who watch this film feel about Huffman’s pain being placed next to theirs? Huffman and all his interviewees get a lesson in how to live as a man after trauma with zero suffering Olympics. All pain is valid and must be expressed to be healed.
Afterwards Huffman becomes a man on a mission and claims his calling as witness. It is a powerful turning point in the story as he consciously becomes an emotional exorcist. Robinson heightens the stakes with an unnecessary threat that if Huffman exposes issues with the initial award decision, he could threaten his career, but that storyline fizzles out because Robinson just sees men as flawed, not villains. By the end of the film, everyone gets carried away with Huffman’s zeal until we reach an effective, emotionally manipulative denouement that will resonate with even the most cynical viewer.
Stay for the closing credits of The Last Full Measure when we see clips from real-life interviews of people who knew Pitsenbarger, who gets the short shrift in this film and still needs a documentary devoted to him. In the film, when a vet tells a story about him, the film shows a flashback. Pitsenbarger takes off his helmet to show his golden hair. He is the most handsome and physically fit in these flashbacks. Think discount Steve Rogers or brand name Chris Evans. Attractiveness equals goodness. The flashbacks are the weakest point in the film. The flashback actors are never going to be as good as the thespians who play the older version of their characters because we are not watching This Is Us. These scenes are monotonous and repetitive. The movie opens with these scenes and initially makes it look black and white with green accents, which is as interesting as it gets.
If you have time to watch a flawed movie with amazing performances that addresses men confronting trauma in an ultimately healthy way, I highly recommend that you see The Last Full Measure.
