Another dark, gloomy drama about home life during wartime, this film features some seriously great performances and a theme that will resonate powerfully with thoughtful audiences.
The Messenger (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:70
Fresh:63
Rotten:7
Average Rating:7.4/10
Consensus: A dark but timely subject is handled deftly by writer/directer Owen Moverman and superbly acted by Woody Harrleson and Ben Foster.
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis:
Co-written by Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon, THE MESSENGER is a powerful and tender story about a returned war hero making his first steps toward a normal life.
In his first leading role,...
Co-written by Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon, THE MESSENGER is a powerful and tender story about a returned war hero making his first steps toward a normal life.
In his first leading role, Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds himself drawn to Olivia (Morton), to whom he has just delivered the news of her husband's death, Will’s emotional detachment begins to dissolve and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human portrait of grief, friendship and survival.
Featuring tour-de-force performances from Foster, Harrelson and Morton, and a brilliant directorial debut by Moverman, THE MESSENGER brings us into the inner lives of these outwardly steely heroes to reveal their fragility with compassion and dignity. --© Oscilloscope
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Starring: Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Jena Malone
Starring: Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Jena Malone, Eamonn Walker, Steve Buscemi
Director: Oren Moverman
Director: Oren Moverman
Screenwriter: Oren Moverman, Alessandro Camon
Producer: Mark Gordon, Lawrence Inglee, Zach Miller
Composer: Nathan Larson
Studio: Oscilloscope Pictures
Reviews for The Messenger
One of the rare movies that communicates honestly and artfully about the real casualties of war: the surviving combatants.
...[The Messenger] highlights the gulf between those who have served in Iraq and nearly everyone else they deal with after returning home.
This character piece may be for the arthouse, but the artistry has a gaping wound, large enough to allow credulity to seep out.
The Messenger is a successful examination of the harsh realities of war that too often are put in the back of people's minds.
As the lonely, complex and friendly Stone, Harrelson evokes the experience of The Messenger as sturdily as a freshly pinned medal of valor.
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.
The Messenger involves difficult subject matter, but it's not hard to watch. It's sad and sobering, but also humorous and touching at turns.
Foster and Harrelson have a winning camaraderie as they develop a bond of trust and friendship. Both performances are memorable and deserve year-end awards consideration.
This is a poignant war movie, but it's also a buddy movie with a difference, one that's both funny and bleak.
The Messenger manages to be both practical and patriotic in the same breath, zeroing in on one of the most painful aspects of wartime.
This is a fully felt, morally alert, marvellously acted piece of work. Despite the grim subject, it’s a sweet-tempered movie, with moments of explosive humor -- an entertainment.
A fine bookend to Katheryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, showing another side of how the war at home can be just as rigorous as the one abroad.
The Messenger knows that even if it tells a tearjerking story, it doesn't have to be a tearjerker. In fact, when a sad story tries too hard, it can be fatal.
I’m not sure how Morton made sense of her character’s ebbs and flows, but I never doubted her. She’s a mariner in uncharted seas of emotion.
As powerful and restrained a drama as you could wish for...a film of both great sadness and great redemption.
The miracle of this film is in its insistence on finding a way back home -- to fragile new beginnings giving way to new friendship, perhaps even new love.
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