The Messenger - The Last Message

The horror of war is far from taking place only on the battlefields or in the countries affected by war. Oren Moverman's drama "The Messenger - The Last Message" powerfully shows how the senseless killing in war also spreads its cold grip across thousands of miles.

After being wounded on a mission in Iraq, young Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is forced to return to the US for a few months of duty. He is assigned to the experienced Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), with whom he must pursue a particularly thankless task: the two men must notify the relatives of soldiers killed in action about their deaths. The first commandment: show no sympathy and do not touch the bereaved under any circumstances. It is difficult for Will to stick to this rule, but with hard discipline he holds out - until he meets the young widow Olivia (Samantha Morton) and feels particularly attracted to the grieving woman...

"The Messenger - The Last Message" is a very good, in its quiet way extremely powerful film. The great performances by Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster alone make the drama absolutely worth watching. All of that is without question. However, Oren Moverman's work is a thoroughly American film, and viewers in this country will probably have little interest in its subject matter.

In itself, such a thing should not really be a problem, as long as the story the film tells really captivates the audience. And even that might be difficult for the Israeli-born director's debut. The film takes an almost endless amount of time to follow Will and Tony as they go about their difficult task. Of course, the whole thing is moving, especially when the forceful acting of the two leads makes it downright palpable what war in general, and their job in particular, does to men.

However, as human as many aspects of the story may be, the entire setting is so American that it's extremely difficult to identify with what's happening. While this doesn't make "The Messenger - The Final Message" a bad film, it does make it one that appeals to a very small target audience outside of the US. But for this audience then without a doubt: absolutely recommended!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp