Michael Esper is the reason this lands

I came away thinking about Michael Esper's work as George Dougherty more than I expected. The small reactions do a lot of the heavy lifting. A couple of tiny timing choices really stuck with me. I bought the character pretty quickly, which is not always easy in this kind of film. There is a nice lived-in quality to it, nothing too forced. It is the kind of performance that quietly makes the movie sturdier. It is less about one scene and more about the overall aftertaste.