Producers: Steve Chasman, Keitz Kjarval, Brad Furman, Jess Fuerst, Jim Seibel, Christopher Milburn and Brad Feinstein   Director: Brad Furman   Screenplay: Brad Furman, Jess Fuerst and Pablo Fenjves   Cast: Scott Eastwood, John Leguizamo, Nora Arnezeder, Jamie Foxx, Robert De Niro, Shamier Anderson, Yul Vazquez, Rita Ora, Saïd Taghmaoui, Eire Farrell, Alexa Feinstein, Xen Sams and Laurence Mason    Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Grade: F

You have to assume that the cast and crew thought that there was some potential in “Tin Soldier.”  After all, writer-director Brad Furman had turned both “The Lincoln Lawyer” and “The Infiltrator” into pulpy fun, and if “Runner” and “City of Lies” were disappointing, both at least were competently made.

Why, then, is his newest such an unmitigated disaster?  One could point to individual factors.  The dialogue is terrible, made all the worse by reams over voice-over reflections by the protagonist that make the phrase purple prose an understatement.  Tim Maurice-Jones’ cinematography is merciless, veering from murky gloom to eye-piercing brightness.  Crispian Sallis’s production design is simply ugly, while Chris Hajian music drones on with predictable groans and flourishes.  Worst of all, Jarrett Fijal’s editing turns the entire thing into a choppy mess, with piles of flashbacks jostling with a “contemporary” narrative that’s gibberish to start with.  There’s also some hilariously bad VFX to contend with.

But even more detrimental is the attempt to say something about PTSD and cults in the context of an overblown action movie seemingly inspired by, of all things, the FBI assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in 1993, with a saccharine romance added to the mix.  The combination is tasteless in the extreme, and even some good—in some cases, excellent—performers can do nothing with it.  Not that most of them really try.

In any event, the focal point of things is Nash Cavanaugh (Scott Eastwood), an ex-soldier whose combat experience had left him in psychological tatters. He fell under the sway of charismatic leader Leon K. Prudhomme (Jamie Foxx), who, we eventually learn, had been provided with government subsidies to create a program to assist veterans suffering from PTSD.  But he transformed the effort into a cult.  Styling himself The Bokushi, he created what he called simply The Program, turning his followers, ensconced in an impregnable fortress in Idaho, into an army of super-warrior Shinjas who would build a utopia called Eutierria, a goal that involves ridding the world of those who would seek to prevent its implementation.

Nash was a true believer, but fell in love with Evoli (Nora Arnezeder), one of the female members of the group, and the two shared bucolic frolics in the compound’s rustic environs until The Bokushi intervened, informing Nash that he had to approve all such couplings.  Nash and Evoli decided to escape, but their car was attacked and, in the ensuing crash (one of the better-executed action moments), she was apparently killed.  Nash returned to the outside world, more traumatized than ever.

So much for the backstory, told in fragments through flashbacks, Nash’s dreary voice-overs, and sluggish exposition by Emmanuel Ashburn (Robert De Niro), an enigmatic guy who admits to having initially helped start Prudhomme’s work and is now allied with Luke Dunn (John Leguizamo), an undercover FBI man, in a plan to invade the Idaho compound and end the cult.  They ask Cavanaugh to join them, using his personal knowledge of the facility’s interior to their advantage, and pressure him by implying that Evoli survived the crash and is still alive inside.  This is Nash’s chance to save her.

The bulk of the movie consists of the assault on the compound, depicted in a series of sloppy, poorly staged episodes bogged down by Nash’s boring ruminations and more dreary flashbacks, and culminating in a final confrontation between him and The Bokushi in a gargantuan arena beside a dam that serves as The Program’s secret lair.  Their fight goes on interminably until an explosion creates a breach in the dam that unleashes an unconvincing wall of water.

The cast is utterly defeated by the material, but in different ways.  Eastwood is simply dull, looking dazed not so much by Nash’s pain but by his own incomprehension.  By contrast Foxx goes wildly overboard with the ranting and strutting—he was more restrained as a Spider-Man villain—and snarling Leguizamo isn’t far behind. (Foxx’s table-top hairdo will certainly provoke giggles.)  Arnezeder demonstrates little chemistry with Eastwood, and De Niro gives what for him is a perfunctory turn, all grizzle without sizzle.  The supporting cast mostly seems justifiably baffled by the goings-on.

Perhaps “Tin Soldier,” shot mostly in Greece and Eastern Europe, once had some logical shape and a coherent story to tell.  But in its final form, running only eighty minutes, it feels like something that’s truncated yet still overlong, desperately thrown together from clumps of material that Furman has tried to link together by the addition of those inanely soapy voice-over bursts.  The result is terrible, and it certainly doesn’t make one wish for a future director’s cut.