‘The Keeper’ is unsubtle story of veteran suicide and a man on a mission

“The Keeper” — 2 stars

Inspired by the true story of George Eshleman, a U.S. Army veteran who, in 2016, hiked the entire Appalachian Trail while carrying the names of 363 veterans who died by suicide, “The Keeper” aims, above all, to raise awareness about a very real problem. On average, there are 22 veteran suicides a day, as the character of George (played without frills or fuss by actor, co-director and producer Angus Benfield) tells us, over and over again, in this plain-spoken, low-budget drama.

The movie’s goal is as clear, as specific and as unadorned as the gray cloth patch touting the suicide-prevention organization the real Eshelman founded, Unified Warrior Foundation, that rides on the back of George’s Osprey knapsack. Although the cinematography is at times quite beautiful, featuring shots of the natural world that include a vista of white clouds seen from Virginia’s Whitetop Mountain, the acting is merely serviceable and the screenplay, by Todd Tavolazzi from a story by Eshelman, can be redundant, maudlin and at times unsubtle to the point of didacticism.

“We’re all guilty of hiding something, not from others, but ourselves,” a grizzled and Yoda-like Vietnam veteran (Fred Robbins) tells George when they encounter each other on the trail.” The eventual revelation of what George is hiding will provide a modicum of suspense, in a story whose other moments of drama include a nighttime visit by a bear while George is using an outhouse — the animal heard but never seen, presumably for budgetary reasons — and what George takes to be a ghost while staying in a haunted hostel along the way.

So much for comic relief. Mostly, a mood of ghoulishness hangs over the proceedings, like the five-pound bundle of name tapes — identifying cloth patches worn by members of the military on their uniforms — that hangs from George’s waist to honor his fallen comrades, dead by their own hands. At times, the mood lifts, like the fog that shrouds the gorgeous peaks. Kudos to cinematographer Richard Galli for capturing what becomes, in the course of the story, a literal reason to live.

There are other through-hikers/military veterans George meets on his journey: chiefly Taz (Andrew Ferguson), Peanut (Haley Babula), Bacon (Nicholas Asad) and Mini Me (Michael Maclane), known solely by their “trail names”: nicknames traditionally adopted by the hiking community. (George earns the moniker of “Keeper,” for preserving the memory of the dead men and women whose names he carries.)

The lore of hiking, including the mantra “The trail will provide” — repeated ad nauseam — is one of the more interesting features of this story, which was shot along the trail and features real way stations between Maine’s Mount Katahdin, where George’s trek begins, and Georgia’s Springer Mountain, where it ends 144 days later.

These four young vets, also through-hikers, pop up throughout the film as their paths cross with George’s, providing critical intervention, stern tongue-lashings and other lessons, as needed by the overly obvious screenplay. Their true role and purpose, in a nice but not exactly surprising twist, will be saved for the end.

It feels churlish, even disrespectful, to quibble about the aesthetics and narrative deficiencies of a story that is so earnest — whose heart is so very much in the right place — especially one that opens on Memorial Day weekend. “The Keeper” will win no filmmaking prizes. But it doesn’t mean, or need, to. Like an infomercial, its aim is more simple, direct and unapologetic: to call attention to an epidemic hiding in plain sight. By that measure: mission accomplished.

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Screening at the Regal Lake Zurich. Unrated, but contains some coarse language and mature thematic elements, including suicide and sexual assault. 101 minutes