The Messenger is about a soldier (Ben Foster) who was badly wounded in Iraq and with 3 months of service left is assigned to the Casualty Notification Office.  It becomes his job, along with his mentor/partner (Woody Harrelson) to inform soldiers next of kin as soon as possible after they are killed.  It’s directed by Oren Moverman and written by Moverman and Alessandro Camon.  Both are troubled men and while Harrelson’s character deals with alcoholism, Foster’s deals with the loss of his girlfriend (Jena Malone) and his feelings for a wife they notified about her husband’s death (Samantha Morton).

So first off most people searching for this movie are just looking for naked pictures of Jena Malone.  I do not blame you.  Besides being a terrific actress, she’s also very attractive.  So click the censored image to get a bigger uncensored version.

Now we can get on with the review.  By the way that scene above happens less than 5 minutes into the film and Malone herself is in perhaps 2 scenes.  I wasn’t expecting to like this movie much, and to be honest I find myself with mixed feelings about it.  My biggest problem with it is that it is way too long.  It’s only about an hour and 45 minutes but for some reason it feels 4 hours long.  At one point I expected the movie to be over and checked the time and it was only 45 minutes in.  The first part though moves pretty fast, after that though things really slow down and I think a lot could have been trimmed to make this a leaner, quicker movie.  It doesn’t so much linger like The Hurt Locker, which even though scenes seem to take forever never felt long.

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My other quasi problem was with Ben Foster.  He just seems very one note in his performance and it’s honestly nothing special.  Where this movie really excels is Harrelson’s performance.  Everyone already knows he can play crazy spectacularly, but this is a more toned down craziness.  His character has his own code and is fighting an internal war with himself constantly.  There’s one scene where he just starts and stops crying, ultimately breaking down into a horrific sob that is wonderful.

Also another thing I really liked was how the plot is used to explore grief itself and how different people react to it.  We see several notifications and everyone reacts differently.  I was particularly surprised to see Steve Buscemi as one of the receivers of bad news, and of course he was great, as were all the people who had to play that horror.  But it goes beyond exploring just those who are being told a loved one has died.  It explores the inner grief of the soldiers and even in once scene of a newly returned home soldier who can’t admit that life is never going to be the same after what he’s experienced.  This side of the movie is terrific.

So although I have some mixed feelings I do think the emotions are true and the movie overall is pretty good and certainly better than most hollywood shit.

Buy tickets to The Messenger on Fandango:

You can also pre-order the DVD or Blu-ray from Amazon. It comes out May 18th.