The Messenger – Blu-ray Review

The Film:

A few years back, there was a boom of war films dealing with the Iraq conflict, but they didn’t do well at the box office. Some claimed “too soon”, others claimed that they weren’t that good to begin with, yet did anyone consider that they felt like agenda films? Republicans and Democrats are going to be at odds until this mess in the Middle East wraps up, if it does, and it’s hard to separate politics from a war film, especially since everyone has a political idea on what’s going on with the war.

The Messenger is a smart, powerful film. After seeing it, you feel like you just crashed into a brick wall.

Stripping politics and the nature of war away, we follow a soldier (Ben Foster) who is assigned to be in the Army’s Causality Notification Service, with Captain Stone (Woody Harrelson). The film is a raw, emotional look at the effects of war. Harrelson’s character comments on people who fail to realize what war is, as he talks about how people wave their little American flags, thank soldiers for their service, all of that patriotic stuff, but become shocked when he shows up to their door. If you didn’t know, the Causality Notification Service are the two soldiers who knock on the door of the next of kin, to regretfully tell them their loved one has died in combat. It’s a bitch of a job, something that can be easily manipulative in a movie.

Director Oren Moverman handles these emotionally charged scenes with restraint. Each person reacts differently to the news, but Moverman builds the sadness up with the dilemma Ben Foster’s character feels. There’s pain and guilt in his eyes, and at any second he could explode. Moverman reveals characters slowly, peeling back layers when needed, and it all works. I recall the scenes in We Were Soldiers when Madeline Stowe chooses to tell the families herself. It was your typical Hollywood phoniness. The Messenger is a stunning debut film from Moverman, a film that shows the tough job in the services might not be on the front lines.

The film has a subplot involving Ben Foster who strikes up a relationship of sorts with a widow (Samantha Morton) that doesn’t work as well as it should have, but one can forgive it, due to the superb acting and the intensity of the scenes when Foster and Harrleson are walking up to a house to deliver the news. The Messenger asks questions we have rarely asked ourselves when it comes to war: are we really ready for the true consequences of war? Raw, sad, real, and a few hundred adjectives later, The Messenger will leave you trembling; a film you won’t soon forget.

The Blu-ray:

Audio/Video: The details are extremely high, with the only flaw of the transfer is the bleeding of blacks into grays as the picture tends to get lost with no shadow detail, but this could be a production thing and not a transfer issue. Overall, the film’s lack of color actually looks quite bold in HD, far superior to the included DVD. The audio track is quite front heavy, which is the intended nature of the sound design, and is quite good. Being an early Blu-ray from Oscilloscope Laboratories, the results are quite good.

Commentary: Director/Co-writer Oren Moverman, Producer Lawrence Inglee and Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are present for a soft, sometimes dry, but always interesting chat. We get some really good insights from the actors, as they say what in the film is improvised. Moverman is very articulate and while at times, the track has some dead air, what we get is highly engaging as a listen.

Notification: This is a wonderful documentary that features interviews with real Casualty Notification/Assistance division members as they reflect on the job and their worst experiences. It’s a powerful 25 minutes, filled with heartbreak and honor, but it serves as a fine backbone to the film. In SD.

Going Home: This is a traditional making-of that’s still really good as a watch. Military liaisons and members of the cast and crew talk about the film’s plot, production, and even some political messages, something of interesting importance. I can’t disagree, but I obviously felt that the film was rather neutral. In SD.

Variety Q&A Session: The only HD extra is a 27 minute panel discussion on the film with cast and crew, that serves as a visual commentary, as much is known already after you watch or listen to this, compared to the commentary.

All of this is housed in a fancy recycled packaging from Oscilloscope Laboratories that finishes out the extras with a short essay from Anthony Swofford, writer of Jarhead, the film on DVD on a separate disc, and a .pdf file of the film’s shooting script (viewable only on your DVD-ROM drive).

Conclusion: Emotionally draining, yet one of the best films from last year, gets a chance to further my recommendation via this wonderful Blu-ray set.

The Film: Rating:

The Blu-ray: Rating: