I’ve worried before that it might be too soon for movies about our current wars. They’re too fresh to get a dramatic grip on either the conflicts or what provoked them. What many filmmakers have produced were tracts that cast a skeptical eye. But, as it turns out, the proximity wasn’t the problem. It was the point of view. Americans have been in Afghanistan and Iraq for most of this decade, and in the last two years or so a number of smart, powerful movies - “The Lucky Ones,’’ “The Hurt Locker,’’ and, to some extent, “Stop-Loss’’ - have focused not on the wars, per se, but more dispassionately on the soldiers and their functions in the military.
The Messenger
Serving notice about the casualties of war
In “The Messenger,’’ a forcefully acted and peculiar emotional drama that opens today in Cambridge, we ride shotgun with Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) and Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) as they inform loved ones that their child or significant other has died in battle.
Montgomery and Stone are part of the Army’s casualty notification team. The younger man, Montgomery, has been assigned to the post for the remaining three months of his service. He’s a decorated war hero who saved the lives of fellow soldiers in Iraq. The healing scar around his left eye looks, for what it’s worth, like one of those Jesus Fish. He tries to beg off the assignment - how on earth am I qualified for such a job, he asks. Indeed. Nothing about Montgomery’s hard young eyes, tight face, and intense demeanor says, “My condolences.’’
Bald and mustached, Stone served in Desert Storm but never experienced combat. He could have been any of the war-starved Marines in the underrated 2003 movie “Jarhead.’’ Now Stone excels at notification. Harrelson introduces this character with the rigidity and sternness of Robert Duvall in his commanding officer, “Great Santini’’ mode. Over lunch, Stone explains the many facets of casualty notification protocol, one of the most important being don’t touch the next-of-kin, or, as he puts it, the NOKs. He asks Montgomery if he’s a head case and hands him a pager, which could go off most hours of the day or night.
The notifications themselves are heavy, explosive encounters, each a doozey in its own way. It takes only a second sometimes for the NOKs to know why Montgomery and Stone have arrived. The sight of these two grave-looking men in their uniforms is an immediate giveaway. In one scene they park their car near a playground (the movie was filmed on and around Fort Dix in New Jersey), and as the camera follows them to their destination we see a playground fence lined with nervous-looking women.
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