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Robert Altman directs this adaptation of David Rabe’s award-winning stage play about four young Vietnam draftees who let their fears and insecurities get the better of them after one of them reveals he’s gay. Streamers is a character study that takes place over two nights in a U.S. army barracks. Matthew Modine plays the all-talk tough guy, David Alan Grier plays the mediator of the group, Mitchell Lichtenstein plays the gay guy, and Michael Wright plays a hot-headed transient from another troop. George Dzundza and Guy Boyd play two drunken sergeants who mostly terrify the young men with their stories of warfare.

Streamers is about disparate men thrust together in a tense situation, which is generally a good way to gain insight into the sex that prefers to remain button-lipped and in denial of their problems. The story tackles homophobia and racism in a non-didactic way, but is really more about human beings simply wanting to drop their shields and connect with one another for comfort and support — not the easiest thing for men to do for one another.

While Lichtenstein’s character is a bit of a flamer, all four young leads are playing complicated characters who are more than they seem at first. Wright in particular gets to show a lot of range. Things come to a boil and the ending isn’t pat. Altman, as always, lets the performances carry the piece, but is more cinematic here than you’d expect from most of his other work.