The Messenger – 6.5

It was fun to watch Woody Harrelson for awhile, but his characterization couldn’t sustain the whole movie, and there really wasn’t much else. The story of two Army men assigned to inform next-of-kin of a death in Iraq, the film thought it was deeper than it was: Sgt. Will’s struggle to regain his humanity after his combat experience was the attempted narrative arc, but neither he nor his story moved me. The number of deaths they got to report in a short time and a small area, each with a dramatic response, was a poetic stretch that added to the hollowness of this story compared to Hurt Locker, Valley of Elah, and even StopLoss.

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