Review of The Messenger (2009) by Kirby P — 25 May 2010

Oren Moverman's directorial debut The Messenger is an ambitious film about two men's brutal job of telling people their children or spouse has died in battle. It's more or less a character study on this part of war, as well as a story about unlikely friendship as these two men, from different wars, bond through their burden.

We are first introduced to Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery(Ben Foster) as he still has a sexual relationship with his former girlfriend before the war, even though she is engaged to another. You learn that this is part of Will's torment of life. Moving on, we find out that Will has been injured badly in war, both mentally and physically, and only has three months left on his contract. The Army reassigns him to a Casualty Notification Team alongside Captain Tony Stone(Woody Harrelson). And an unlikely pairing is born.

We are seen following them through the life of notifying the NOK(next of kin) that their dearly departed loved ones have been killed in action. These scenes are the more powerful parts of the movie and probably should have stuck with this aspect of it. But, we are introduced to a couple of subplots. First of which is a woman named Olivia, who has just been told that her husband lost his life in Iraq. She seems less shaken than most which leads to Will investigating a little into her life. He ends up falling for her and they inappropriately flirt. The second subplot is that of Will's former girlfriend who is having an engagement party but is told not to come over the phone. To say the least he comes to the party. Now both of these subplots could have had a bigger part of the film but they are pretty underwhelming and undercooked.

While Foster and Harrelson do a great job of acting along with Samantha Morton(Olivia), the characters feel a little flat, especially Foster's. You're never really given a reason to care for him until later on in the movie. To say the least, the character development is lacking and for a movie of this scope it really hurts the film. The story is an original premise that is done fairly well by Moverman but I can't help but feel that a more experienced director could have made this an emotional roller coaster. I felt he should have dived more into the psychological aspect of his characters as you really never get a great grasp on what they are going through. It's definitely not a bad movie and is probably worth your time but I can't help but feel it's lacking.

Acting - 4/5.

Character Development - 2/5.

Pacing - 2/5.

Direction - 3/5.

Story - 4/5.

Overall - 6.5/10.