DVD REVIEW: The Messenger

WHEN DEATH COMES CALLING

While there doesn't seem any end in sight to American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, more and more films are pouring out of Hollywood exploring different aspects of the conflict, inevitably, from an Amercian point-of-view. So, if The Hurt Locker was sensational for its examination of the de-humanising effects of war (although never a direct indictment of America's war on terror), through the story of a bomb disposal squad, The Messenger, another independent film directed by debutant Oren Moverman, a war veteran from Israel and co-written by him and Alessandro Camon, looks at the lives of officers who have the unenviable task of delivering news of soldiers' deaths to their loved ones. There isn't a gentle way of doing it and Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) knows it from years of experience. He just likes to say it succinctly, without any feeling, like a mechanical voice-recorded message that plays the same words each time. Stone may never have been a very perceptive man, but his line of work has further dulled his senses and he's as much a ticking time bomb as Sergeant James in The Hurt Locker. Harrelson brings a maniacal quality to his character with his crazy eyes and acidic voice and delivers a performance so physical in its severity, it's well worth the Oscar nomination he got. 

Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster), a decorated war hero just back from the front and still trying to restore his battered body and damaged soul, is assigned as Stone's deputy, a job he accepts with great reservations. Working with the temperamental Stone isn't easy and delivering bad news even more so. The first door they knock at has a pregnant woman awaiting her boyfriend's return from the front. The second one is a father (Steve Buscemi) who's so enraged, he spits on Will's face. The pressure lies in not just doing such an unsavoury task, but also in the unpredictable nature of the responses from those they're conveying the message to. Will is far too shaken up by his own experiences and still disoriented with civilian life to be able to shoulder this responsibility. The girl he loved has moved on since he left for the war and in a serious relationship with another man. The loneliness of the soldier, with no family or friends to fall back on, is evident in Will's sad eyes. Foster's face has a quiet intensity which works to the advantage of the character he's essaying. He plays well with silences. 

On the one hand, Tony and Will gradually slip into a peculiar friendship of sorts, on the other, Will gets drawn towards the recently widowed Olivia (Samantha Morton), who faces the news of her husband's death with stoicism. It's an unusual relationship between two wounded souls. Both are tentative and unsure of themselves. Moverman gives them extended scenes (rarely cutting into the awkwardness) and punctuates their brief conversations with many things left unsaid. Both Foster and Morton are superb in these moments, while Harrelson plays up the nervous energy that his character puts up as a facade against his weaknesses. 

Like all good films built around catastrophic events such as war, The Messenger is first and above all, a moving human drama. A story of individual lives that's meant to convey the futility and senselessness of conflict and the toll it takes on people in so many different ways.