It has been a long time since I saw a film the I enjoyed as much. And I'm not being too kind here, because I expected it to be good. Oscar nomination for Woody Harrelson and a solid plot - you would expect good things to happen.
But here's the twist. I didn't think it was that good. For starters, Woody Harrelson was good, I won't go against the academy on this one, but I didn't think he was that good. I thought Ben Foster was better. Everything else seemed good as well - the directing, screenplay, writing (once again, won't go against the academy.) But that doesn't mean it was anything special. So why did I enjoy this so much?
The reason was that for the first time for a very long time I felt the people were really acting the emotions of the characters. And I liked that. Every now and again a film like this comes along and we instantly credit the plot or the writing. I guess for me, it was the combination of acting with the theme that created this sense of enjoyability. It just felt good to watch. I felt the actors weren't simply depicting the actions of the characters, they weren't puppets to movement. They were real, they were playing feelings.
Having never been to war and being very unlikely ever to have, I cannot judge whether the feelings conveyed were accurate or not, maybe someone else may see the film as slightly fake but I enjoyed it. I really did.
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