Kevin Bacon gives a stoical performance in 'Taking Chance'

"Taking Chance" tells a Spartan story, which sets it apart from the usual HBO pet project. Like many premium-cable movies that start out as boutique productions for some Hollywood star, it's a simple tale simply told, but in this case the simplicity is taken to such extremes it becomes both the style and the substance.

There isn't a hint of anyone showing off in front of or behind the cameras in "Taking Chance," and that gives the 80-minute movie a stoical elegance when it premieres at 7 p.m. Saturday on HBO.

Kevin Bacon stars as real-life Marine Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, military escort for the body of a casualty being returned from Iraq to his parents for burial. Nothing else much happens in "Taking Chance." Strobl takes possession of the body in Delaware, sees it through flights from Philadelphia to Minneapolis to Montana, then delivers it to the local funeral director in Wyoming and attends the ceremony, returning the soldier's personal effects to his family in the process.

This is what the Bush administration has denied U.S. viewers from seeing with its ban on any images of caskets returning from the war in Iraq. No doubt that was done to quash any Vietnam-era second-guessing of the military mission, but at the cost of denying those killed in action their full military honors and the appreciation of a grateful nation. So it packs an initial punch to see this casket and its journey. (The title refers to the fallen Marine, Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps.) Yet, far beyond that, the film's attention to military procedure, protocol, ceremony and ritual drives the emotional impact home.

My own impression is that strict military protocol - the slow salutes, the attention to uniform dress, etc. - gives soldiers a way to both honor the dead and process their passing. It's not unlike the blues in that regard - a form that channels the emotions. Yet the repetition in "Taking Chance" actually works the other way, to open a viewer to the emotions involved, without stooping to sentimentality.

So it should be pointed out that the unseen Hollywood star driving this boutique project turns out to be not Bacon, but producer Ross Katz, who not only makes his directorial debut with a reserved sense of style, but also wrote the script along with the real-life Strobl himself, working from an account of the journey that gained notoriety on the Internet.

Katz focuses on all the little fine points: the attention paid to the fallen soldier's uniform, even though the remains are "not recommended for viewing," the way Strobl salutes the casket whenever it is loaded or unloaded on a plane, the cleaning of the soldier's bloodied watch and St. Christopher's Medal at the military mortuary in Dover, Del. Then he throws in a little homage to "The Searchers" by framing Bacon's Strobl and his family in doorways at the beginning and end of his trip.

Bacon, in turn, projects the guilt Strobl feels with a minimum of fuss. A Desert Storm veteran who has since rejected active duty for a desk job, he says, "I'm a numbers cruncher now," explaining, "I don't know, I just got used to seeing my wife and kids."

Although an officer of his rank usually doesn't take an assignment as a military escort, he offers when he thinks the victim is a resident of his own Colorado hometown, only to discover the fallen soldier might have enlisted there, but his parents want the body returned to their home in Wyoming.

It's only the first of many unexpected twists to the journey. Strobl's guilt only deepens when a sympathetic flight attendant upgrades him to first class, but he assuages it by eschewing a hotel to spend the night with the body in a Minneapolis airline hanger.

Through it all, he's touched in various ways by the responses of the people around him, both to the casket being flown home and his sense of duty in accompanying it.

Through it all, Katz's script and direction and Bacon's acting never reach for anything that's not there in plain view. So, even while nothing much transpires in "Taking Chance," the accumulation of detail builds until it makes a strong emotional impression.

This is a movie that honors all those who paid the ultimate price only to have their remains slipped back into the country with a minimum of attention and recognition. It's a noble, understated film, and all the more deserving of praise because of it.