2009 was a great year for Woody Harrelson. He starred in the extremely fun zombie flick "Zombieland", which I loved. That however was not my selection for 2009 (I had seen it already - which would violate the rules) - I chose Harrelson's other movie - "The Messenger." The simple little film follows two military men who have the job of informing those that are next of kin upon the death of a soldier. Going into this movie, I expected to love it. Rave reviews, Oscar nominations, an interesting topic - what could go wrong? Quite a bit, unfortunately. First though, the positives. I think why so many people loved this movie is due to a few very powerful scenes. The moments of grief when family members learn of their loved ones death is hard to watch - it's so real and well done. Since you cannot just watch a movie where that happens over and over again, you have to develop a story around that - and that's where the problems come in. Ben Foster plays a soldier who is recovering from massive combat injuries. He is given the "safe" job of accompanying a more experienced notification officer (Harrelson) as an apprentice of sorts.
Where the movie veers into "are you kidding me" territory is when the young soldier starts to develop a relationship with one of the women he notifies of the loss of her husband. I won't spoil anything, but if you think the movie is going to justify both of their actions, you may be let down. A lot of the film is just an uncomfortable mess. Maybe that's the message we're supposed to be getting - war is messy - but well, I get that. I don't need my intelligence to be insulted in the process. So while a few scenes are definitely extraordinary, this movie is bogged down by ludicrousness to the point that I cannot recommend it as a whole. 4.5 out of 10.
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