Review of The Messenger (2009) by Kevin D — 10 Jan 2011
This movie is really good and powerful at times, but at other times it's boring and unfocused. The film is at its best when Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster are on screen together delivering the news that people's loved ones have been killed in the war.
In those scenes the film plays like Up in the Air only with Harrelson in the Clooney role and Ben Foster in the Anna Kendrick role. This is one of Harrelson's best roles. It's up there with The People vs.
Larry Flynt and Natural Born Killers. Here he plays a menacing member of the armed forces that has a tender side at times. Harrelson will command your attention every second he's on the screen. This is not the Ben Foster we're used to seeing.
It's not the same raging lunatic we saw in 30 Days of Night, 3:10 To Yuma and Alpha Dog. Foster tones everything down in a more realistic role. The movie is moving and powerful in the scenes where the two lead actors deliver bad news to the loved ones of soldiers, but I didn't care for the sub-plots with Samantha Morton and Foster's ex-girlfriend.
I would have liked to have seen a movie that focused more on the pain associated with military death and how the people who deliver the news deal with it. Instead we're left with a few individually great scenes mixed with scenes I didn't care about.
The Messenger is a noble and well-intended movie that has an unfocused screenplay.
This review of The Messenger (2009) was written by Kevin D on 10 Jan 2011.
The Messenger has generally received positive reviews.
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