Starring Josh Wiggins, Lauren Graham, and Thomas Haden Church. Rated PG.

E.T. meets Platoon, with some Stand by Me thrown in, for a surprisingly powerful family movie that addresses many things eating away at the USA.

When we meet Justin Wincott (Hellion’s nicely understated Josh Wiggins), he’s a typically cynical 15-year-old, deriding his marine brother’s tour in Afghanistan while playing violent video games in his spacious Texas home. Mom (Gilmore Girl Lauren Graham) is a seemingly passive homemaker who gets between him and his authoritarian dad (Sideways slacker Thomas Haden Church), a pistol-packing ex-marine who expects kids to call him sir.

This precarious family order is upended right at the start, when the older sibling (busy Canadian Robbie Amell), an expert dog handler, doesn’t make it home. His canine, a super-smart Belgian Malinois called Max, does, however—with a wicked case of PTSD. The skittish shepherd responds well to Justin, and suddenly the Wincotts have a volatile new family member.

This uneasy return is a potent symbol of what these no-win missions are doing to soldiers, greeted by meagre resources if they survive. (Here’s looking at you, Stephen “Photo Op” Harper.) As happened with Vietnam, the U.S. military suicide rate is roughly equal to that of combat casualties, and Max is in constant danger of being “put down” if he fails to adjust.

Pumped up by Trevor Rabin’s martial music, the film (actually shot in North Carolina) seems at first to be valorizing America’s ceaseless chest-beating. But doubt creeps in around the edges. At the inevitable Fourth of July parade, obese white Texans line one side of the street, while people of colour are on the other. And Justin’s goofy best friend, Chuy (Dejon LaQuake), avoids the Wincott house because “Your dad has no love for the light-brown brothers.” Fortunately, Chuy’s ungirlie cousin Carmen (winsome Mia Xitlali) knows a lot about dogs, and about dealing with sexists and casual racists. She spots, as the audience already knows, that the dead brother’s hometown marine buddy (Luke Kleintank) is up to no good on his return.

As you might be noticing, Max is not light on plot. Director and cowriter Boaz Yakin, who started with small tales of marginal New Yorkers before graduating to action flicks like Safe, has a lot to say and wants things both ways. His screenplay partner here, Sheldon Lettich, is himself a Vietnam vet most notable for writing and directing well-armed adventures for Sylvester Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme. The result is perhaps too dependent on the sort of violent conflict the filmmakers are otherwise clearly against. (The dogfights are particularly squirm-worthy.)

But there’s something about all these contradictions struggling to dominate two hours of screen time that perfectly captures an anxious nation at its crossroads moment—bitter, confused, and fighting for a way out.