![Ben Foster in "The Messenger"](http://i.dailyherald.com/stories/213/213842.jpg "Ben Foster in "The Messenger\"")
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Casualty-notification officer Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) delivers devastating news to families of fallen soldiers in “The Messenger.” |
They’re called casualty-notification officers.
Their mission is to go to the homes of fallen soldiers to notify their NOK (next-of-kin) of their deaths in the line of duty. It’s a terrible job, and in Oren Moverman’s painfully intimate, exquisitely detailed “The Messenger,” Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster bring strength, pain, loneliness, honor and a rainbow of other conflicting qualities to their roles as military messengers of doom.
Captain Tony Stone (Harrelson) has been married three times, twice to the same woman. Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Foster) has no family or personal commitments.
They don’t really like each other at first. But they begrudgingly find common ground as they carry out their mission in a series of masterfully executed vignettes that tell us everything we need to know about the families of the fallen within 30 seconds of meeting them. (Read more…)Rated: R (language, sexual situations, nudity). 105 minutes.
Opens Thursday, November 19 at the Music Box in Chicago.