The Messenger
Director: Oren Moverman
Year Released: 2009
Rating: 2.0
A wounded soldier (Ben Foster), back from the Occupation in Iraq, is given the assignment of accompanying another war vet (Woody Harrelson) to speak with surviving family members of those killed in action. Redundant and obvious for the first half, it changes things up slightly for the second, when it (tenuously) plays up the barely-plausible romance between the Foster character and war widow Samantha Norton and when it (finally) shows former alcoholic Harrelson start drinking again mostly so he can fight with Foster. Presumably there's an anti-war sentiment in there, but it's weak on particulars (showing hysterical relatives is about as deep as it goes - war is bad, killing is bad, etc.), and it's the intriguing interaction between Foster and Harrelson that makes the movie tolerable.
