The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
Features  |  Reviews
FIND MOVIES
Find a Movie
Movie List
Loading ...
or
Find Theaters and Movie Times
or
Search Movies
Nominate-best-2010

Review: The Messenger

The Iraq War hits suburbia
By SHAULA CLARK  |  November 17, 2009
3.0 3.0 Stars

 

Director Oren Moverman’s feature-length debut is a little like The Hurt Locker in the way it uncomfortably probes a little-known military organelle. But this Iraq War film trades the land-mine-riddled desert for the more stealthily treacherous suburbs, as Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) returns from combat only to be shanghai’d into the Army’s Casualty Notification service, whose operatives do the gut-wrenching job of delivering death notices to soldiers’ next of kin.

Will’s bristly mentor, Tony (Woody Harrelson), advises him to “stick to the script.” And you suspect that The Messenger itself will follow formula when fate decrees that Will fall for war widow Olivia (Samantha Morton). Yet something far more complicated blossoms.

The movie may start out clunky, but as Will and Tony wander from house to house, surfing “a fucking ocean of grief,” their icy carapaces melt, old wounds reopen, and things get interesting.

Related: Word play, Review: The Hurt Locker, Review: Management, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Woody Harrelson, Woody Harrelson, Iraq War,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
HTML Prohibited
Add Comment

ARTICLES BY SHAULA CLARK
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: DEAR JOHN  |  February 05, 2010
    "We're sitting here . . . and we're talking, but nobody's actually saying anything."
  •   REVIEW: SUNDANCE SHORTS 2009  |  January 13, 2010
    Welcome to the world of "Sundance Shorts 2009," where the happy endings tend to look more like reprieves from misery.
  •   REVIEW: IN SEARCH OF BEETHOVEN  |  January 06, 2010
    Phil Grabsky's exhaustive documentary doesn't exactly dispel any stereotypes about Beethoven's being a shaggy genius prone to rages.
  •   52 WAYS TO LEAVE 2009  |  December 30, 2009
    Your usual lackadaisical approach to New Year's Eve — just see what happens and go with the flow — is not going to cut it this year. Sure, the end of this decade may not have the same kind of new-millennium pressure riding on it as the last one, but the plunge into 2010 is a milestone nonetheless.
  •   REVIEW: BROTHERS  |  December 09, 2009
    Operation Enduring Freedom seems to have replaced Vietnam as Hollywood's go-to military quagmire from which to dredge gut-wrenching meditations on the psychological carnage of war.

 See all articles by: SHAULA CLARK

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2010 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group