They make six such visits in the course of the movie, and the scenes are rendered by director Oren Moverman with an authenticity and realism that makes them as harrowing and heartrending as they deserve to be.

There is an idea floating around that the American public does not want to see these images, or movies like "The Messenger" - that it prefers to remain in a state of denial regarding the wars or the human cost of fighting them.

Maybe, but there is more to the country's apparent war-movie queasiness, a deep and well-earned suspicion that today's filmmakers are not up to the job. Wary viewers sense that we don't have the William Wellmans or Sam Fullers we need, directors with the experience and skill to tell the stories as they should be told. (Moverman is a vet - of the Israeli army.)

"Redacted" didn't erase those suspicions, and "In the Valley of Elah," though a better movie, seemed to stick to the same script - Iraq and Afghanistan are wars that take decent American kids and turn them into torture-murderers.

"The Hurt Locker" is the best of the bunch, based on extensive embedded reporting of bomb-disposal squads, but even that movie couldn't resist sending its hyper-competent specialists on some wild, pistol-waving mission of personal revenge.

There's some of that in "The Messenger," a movie that opens with enormous promise - Foster is a wounded soldier just back from Iraq, serving out the remainder of his time delivering the worst possible news to Army families.

There's a great scene in the first few moments of Foster's character meeting with his experienced superior, played by Harrelson, who explains the arcane rules of engagement - his instructions seem arbitrary and mysterious at first, but their value and meaning is revealed as they begin to confront bewildered, angry, unpredictable next of kin.

The scenes are so intense that we begin to wonder how long Moverman can keep the tension and emotion at such a high pitch, and it's a relief when he begins to broaden the story to include one man's attraction to the wife (Samantha Morton) of a soldier killed in combat.

"The Messenger" also slows to consider the growing relationship between Foster and Harrelson, who have issues of anger and guilt, and treat them with massive amounts of beer.

We can certainly grant these men their demons, but there is something wrong about a crucial scene, late in the movie, when the two soldiers show up drunk and determined to disrupt a wedding - Banquo's ghosts at a gathering of guilty civilian swells, I guess, but it doesn't feel fair to the soldiers or the civilians.

There are many civilians who've gone out of their way to see worthwhile productions like HBO's "Letters From Home," or "Taking Chance," which showed a dead soldier washed, dressed, transported, escorted and buried by his family.

They wouldn't mind seeing this war's "They Were Expendable."

They're just waiting for this generation's John Ford.

Produced by Mark Gordon, Lawrence Inglee and Zack Miller, directed by Oren Moverman, written by Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon, music by Nathan Larson, distributed by Oscilloscope Pictures.