Review by Gary Tooze

Production:

Disc:

Video:

Audio:

• Commentary with Director/co-writer Oren Moverman, producer Lawrence Inglee and actors Ben Foster + Woody Harrelson
• Going Home: Reflections From the Set (behind-the-scenes footage (11:40 in SD)
• Notification: A documentary about the notification process (24:07 in SD)
• Q&A with the cast and crew (27:15 in HD!)
• DVD of the film and same extras plus shooting script in a PDF file

• 5 Oscilloscope trailers

Bitrate:

 

Description: Co-written by Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon, THE MESSENGER is a powerful and tender story about a returned war hero making his first steps toward a normal life.

In his first leading role, Foster stars as Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army officer who has just returned home from a tour in Iraq and is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Partnered with fellow officer Tony Stone (Harrelson) to bear the bad news to the loved ones of fallen soldiers, Will faces the challenge of completing his mission while seeking to find comfort and healing back on the home front. When he finds himself drawn to Olivia (Morton), to whom he has just delivered the news of her husband's death, Will’s emotional detachment begins to dissolve and the film reveals itself as a surprising, humorous, moving and very human portrait of grief, friendship and survival.

Featuring tour-de-force performances from Foster, Harrelson and Morton, and a brilliant directorial debut by Moverman, THE MESSENGER brings us into the inner lives of these outwardly steely heroes to reveal their fragility with compassion and dignity.

 

 

Audio :

Extras :

Oscilloscope Laboratories have added some solid supplements with a decent-to-strong commentary with director/co-writer Oren Moverman, producer Lawrence Inglee and actors Ben Foster + Woody Harrelson. We are told when the improvised lines are and the actors give input about prep for certain scenes. Short segments are allowed for the film to run - overall it is a bit sedate but worth the extra spin and its inclusion is appreciated. We get the 25-minute short documentary Notification - the last work by the late Joe Kelly. It explores people on both sides of the causality notification process. It is stated that Joe was a member of The Messenger family and I found this short work as a great companion piece to the feature film. Going Home: Reflections From the Set has brief interviews with behind-the-scenes footage and lasts just over 10-minutes. In HD is a Variety Screening Series Q&A with the cast and crew just shy of 1/2 an hour. There is an enclosed SD-DVD in the package which has the film and same extras and adds on the shooting script in a PDF file. Lastly there are 5 Oscilloscope trailers. The cardboard package is quite extensive - perhaps more so than it needed to be and many might have preferred the standard Blu-ray case.