The Messenger vs Role Models

Steve Buscemi shows up early in The Messenger as a man named Dale. He’s a father whose soldier son has been killed in battle. Dale reacts to this news in a way I’ve not seen in a movie before. He’s sarcastic and angry, but oddly logical. Everything he said and asked made perfect sense to me, not because it was particularly well said, but because it was likely. Dale doesn’t know he’s a movie character (Buscemi knows though. Man, he’s good. If actors were ranked like boxers, pound for pound, Buscemi would be the highest paid actor in Hollywood, in the under 150 pound category).

I’ve got a particular fascination with movies that present things just as they are, with no embellishments for the sake of drama, no narrative leaps added in to keep the audience awake. Just humans living lives, working jobs, and taking or missing the opportunities an actual life might bring. The Messenger shows us three lives, and for the most part, just lets them get lived, with no expectations that in a couple hours Major Moments will have taken place, or that lessons will have been learned.

Ben Foster is Will, a Marine with three months left in his current tour. He has an injured leg and eye, and is dismayed that they won’t be healing at the same rate. He’s military; I suppose he’s used to a schedule. To burn off the rest of this time, he’s assigned alongside Tony (Woody Harrelson) with the job of delivering notice of soldiers’ deaths to the next of kin. Tony explains the rules bluntly and quickly. They’re only to speak to the next of kin, no touching, no extra sympathy, no personal information, no contact later. In and out and on to the next house. Tony has done this for a while, is more professional, plays things more by the book. He’s also got a dry sense of humor about his life, and the kind of cynicism that grows out of having a job that involves delivering bad news. This is Woody Harrelson we’re talking about here, so even when Tony is a jerk, you’ll go with it. Harrelson is a warm, empathetic actor, and of course he finds moments to make Tony funny. This is one of Harrelson’s best performances. His final scene is wordless, but tells us everything we need to know about this man and his sad, necessary job.

Foster also impresses. He usually plays whiners and dicks (I didn’t say he wasn’t good at it), but Will is a good man. He’s angry and confused, and most likely suffering from PTSD. He stays up all hours in his tiny apartment, wearing his shades, listening to loud music, punching walls. He pines for an ex-girlfriend who also pines for him, but is marrying someone else anyway. She’s played by Jena Malone, who never saw an indie-movie ex-girlfriend role she couldn’t knock out of the park. Will is also drawn, perhaps more powerfully, to Olivia (Samantha Morton), a woman to whom he delivered bad news and should never have seen again. Samantha Morton is largely responsible for the success of The Messenger, and deserves any accolades she gets. Olivia humanizes Will, giving him (and the audience) hope about his job and life.

The Messenger was directed by Oren Moverman (he wrote the screenplay with Alessandro Camon).  There’s one sequence involving a wedding rehearsal that rings more movie-ish than the rest, but mainly The Messenger alternates between documentary-style scenes of Tony and Will delivering the bad news (the recipients scream, slap, vomit, run, you name it, and it all feels uncomfortably real), and soft, slow scenes of Will and Olivia. They have a scene in a kitchen with the camera just on their faces, forever, as they wait for something to happen, until the waiting is the happening.

Role Models is nothing like The Messenger. It isn’t as authentic, or good, and nothing in it happens like anything happens, or has ever happened, in anyone’s life.  But, it does have two likable actors doing a job no one would want, dealing with difficult, sad people, trying to maintain shaky romantic relationships, and maybe getting to know themselves enough to make life okay for another day.

Even that last part is bullshit. It’s just funny. The Messenger is mainly sad, Role Models is mainly funny. That’s enough, right? Seann William Scott is the Woody Harrelson of the movie (by no means does this suggest that Scott equals Harrelson in any other way. He’s enjoyable, but let’s not get carried away). He’s the horny, funny, inappropriate one. Paul Rudd is the Ben Foster character. He’s angrier, and needs to loosen up and love life. Elizabeth Banks is cute in a thankless role. Bobb’e J. Thompson (Tracy Jr. from 30 Rock) is one of the kids they watch, and he’s a foul-mouthed wonder to behold. I want him to break curfew and join the cast of SNL. The same goes double for Jane Lynch, who Buscemies the hell out of every scene she’s in.

You know the drill, I’m sure. Scott and Rudd screw up a motivational speaking engagement at a school, and then wreck their giant energy drink truck, and wind up with 150 hours of community service, mentoring young boys. Scott and Rudd are both wildly unqualified for helping kids, but wouldn’t you know it, do okay, even learning a thing or two themselves. It’s not as clichéd as it sounds, and much of Role Models is hilarious. None of it packs the punch of the quieter moments of The Messenger, but I’m thinking that’s bad news you can handle.

The Messenger: A-

Role Models: B