While a celebration of military veterans, “The Keeper” is hardly the gung ho drama you might imagine.

Instead, this true story of heartbreak, despair and regeneration focuses on the broken soldiers who come back home – and die by their own hands.

US Army vet George Eshleman in 2016 took the name tags of 363 soldiers who died by suicide – that’s 22 a day in a two-week period – and made a pilgrimage on the Appalachian Trail to honor them.

Eshleman trekked the entire Trail, from Maine to Georgia, with the intention of joining these comrades. Instead, he found purpose and learned that there is an almost mystical experience, a purification perhaps, for those who take this challenge.

“The Keepers,” with a screenplay based on Eshleman’s story by US Navy veteran Todd Tavolazzi, stars Angus Benfield who also co-directs with Marine Corps veteran Kendall Bryant Jr.

“I was looking for inspirational, true stories,” Benfield, 52, recalled in a phone interview.  “This one touched my heart and it was very close to me, especially with the mental health stuff.”

Accurately recreated reality was Eshleman’s mantra in making “Keeper.”

“Everything in the film was in the script and basically pretty much verbatim for what George went through,” Benfield emphasized. “He had hiked the Trail, the whole length from Maine to Georgia, several times. When Todd started, he just took all these notes George had put together and turned it into a script. But the locations, everything, is real. We wanted to honor George, tell the true story and not Hollywoodize it.

“The 363 name tapes are duplicates, because obviously George sent the originals back to the families. But they’re all the actual names.

“And so obviously is the story in the film, which we show: George was going there to end his life. That was exactly what he was going to do. He wasn’t planning on coming back when he first did the Trail.

“But when he continued on, then did it several more times, he realized he could help people. And that’s what he’s doing to this day.”

We hear mantras among the hikers, like ‘No one walks the Trail alone’ and ‘The Trail provides.’ What makes the Trail a mystical, soul-regenerating place?

“It is another side of the story. What the Trail provides is ongoing and people talk about it with their Trail names. George is the Keeper – of the names.

“Yes, there is a spiritual element, a healing process on the Trail. George isn’t the only person who does this. He goes when he needs it.

“When you’re feeling disconnected, just going out and physically walking every day, that whole process has something that is quite healing.”

“The Keeper” is available on VOD Nov. 8

Angus Benfield, as George Eshleman, looks over the name tags of soldiers in a scene from “The Keeper.” (Photo courtesy LAMA Entertainment)