We Regret to Inform You...

In a case of truly awful timing, the movie I happened to have from Netflix this past weekend was The Messenger. This was last year's film starring Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster as soldiers tasked with notifying the next of kin about the deaths of loved ones at war in the Middle East.

With everything going on with my sister weighing on my mind, I was seriously considering just sending the movie back without watching it. But I'd tried to distract myself with other more mindless things throughout the day, and hadn't really met much success. Plus, this is Memorial Day weekend. There was something undeniably appropriate about the subject matter at this time. I decided that even though my experience was sure to be colored by circumstances, I'd just watch the movie anyway.

I found it to be a mixed bag, though trending more good than bad. The very concept of the film is a strong and original one. We've seen versions of the "death notification scene" in more military movies than I could possibly name, but it's an altogether different take on things to follow the people delivering that message, rather than those receiving it. This point of view is just as interesting a way of showing the "cost of war" as, say, a movie about capture and torture (such as Brothers).

However, the execution isn't nearly as clever as the idea. This isn't really a story so much as a character study. The main dramatic narrative of the movie simply surrounds the Ben Foster character, a soldier wounded in action, now assigned to this detail much to his dismay. Exactly what happened to him and what effect it has had on him is the core question, and the climatic scene of the film has him opening up to Woody Harrelson's character to reveal the truth.

What happens leading up to then is a loose collection of "tone poems," just a series of little vignettes on grief. Some great actors show up to deliver good scenes, including Steve Buscemi and Samantha Morton, but these scenes don't have nearly as much to say collectively as they do on their own.

But the acting really is fantastic, and most of all that from the two leads. Woody Harrelson made this film and Zombieland both in the same year, and it shows what command he has of both comedy and drama. And Ben Foster is incredible, especially in that big scene at the end of the movie. Here's a guy that really ought to be a bigger star than he is. He keeps showing up as the best thing about movies that are pretty good (3:10 to Yuma), average (Pandorum), or even downright awful (30 Days of Night), but he's never really been the "star" of anything.

I'd call The Messenger a B- overall. The parts are greater than the whole, but many of those parts are good enough that some of you may want to take a look.