Night Moves

I went to the theater, a bit afraid I'd be on the receiving end of Enviro-Preaching. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find something different. This was actually a suspenseful thriller about paranoia taking hold after the commission of a major crime.

The environmental aspect was just a means to move the story along. Although the story involves eco-sabotage, the basic premise of the fallout from paranoia could have fit in a story about something similar like a robbery gone wrong, etc.

I was tickled to see the counter-culture hippie family eating bacon, and the self-righteous radical enviro-warriors owning gas-guzzling full-size pickup trucks. One of the guys, for all his professed love of the earth, treated his property like a pig sty. I don't think these and other little treats were accidents.

On the negative side, the movie was a bit on the slow side. Not horribly slow, but just a little on the plodding side. I think there were a few too many shots of the main character staring into space, having deep thoughts. Maybe it was constipation, I don't know. And the ending? Definitely could have been reworked, as it was rather disappointing.

In spite of these moderate flaws, I enjoyed this movie very much. It's well worth checking out.

Okay...I was expecting more. All the movie is about the plan. A clearly stupid and poor plan. We even don't know why they are doing that. We actually don't know anything about the characters because everything is silent and green. And that leads us to a non transparent story, full of holes and doubts.

Dialogs are nearly abstract, very plain. Eisenberg can't convince us he is kind of a criminal. There's no tension and that makes it more boring.

Then, the characters change, product of a particular situation (which was patently predictable)and we are expecting the characters to be real human beings, but...they are not.

And then the movie ends. There's no much more. And...OK.

The film comes down to the raw basic of film making as it tells a very suspenseful story of three environmentalist about to become Eco terrorist.

The movie's best quality is that it's real low key. They don't try to hide the purpose of the movie or why they are doing anything. They keep this artistic freedom to a low,so the movie is not frustrating or hard to follow.

Which is good because this movie is painfully slow. No real action is in the movie. All the best action is done off camera so you just have to imagine what's going on, which is not hard cause the focus of the movie is clear.

I myself found the movie enjoyable, but I will admit there a lot of slow parts that I almost fell asleep on.

I was actually surprised after watching this movie, having firstly noticed the given low ratings.

Starting with the characters, the difference in the way each one of them feels about the environmental problems is clear and straightforward. While Harmon, being an ex-con, performs his role in a more detached way, Dena, and mainly Josh, possess deep feelings about them. Dena learnt about them and made up her mind supported in what she claims to be scientific facts. Josh appears to have a more romantic and purist approach, despite his paranoid outbreaks and trust problems. This actually helps the viewer to start building an idea about how each one of these characters will react to the approaching outcome.

OK, it is a slow paced movie, which I don't see as something necessarily bad. Actually, I think it contrasts beautifully with the sentiment of urgency that the problem demands and which they want people to acknowledge. Also, about the kind of numbness in Josh expressions during almost all the scenes, I simply cannot see them as emotionless or empty. I rather think (and felt) that he was the most engagingly involved and disturbed about environmental unbalances, almost in a traumatized way, which I think is reinforced by some plan shots, silent and numbing, taking a few more seconds than we are used to.

Ultimately, it is a movie about the human condition, about good people, with good reasons, doing wrong things.

"One person, that's all it takes." Josh (Eisenberg) and Dena (Fanning) are young environmentalists who are sick of watching the planet get destroyed. Along with a man named Harmon they come up with a plan to blow up a hydro-electric dam as a protest to what is happening. There are a few bumps but for the most part things go according to plan. When the papers the next day report something unexpected the three protesters become scared and trust is challenged. I wasn't sure what to expect from this at all but I was hoping for a movie like The East. That movie was very tense and I really enjoyed it, kinda like an Erin Brokovich on steroids. This one was not like that. On the other hand though I think this one is more realistic. This one deals with three people who are not affiliated with any organization who try to make a big statement but it doesn't go has planned. No one is a loud mouth or draws attention to themselves which is good for what they are doing, but not for a movie. This is very slow and has very little dialog. The movie isn't bad but never quite gets as tense and suspenseful as needed. Acting is good but the movie was really lacking something to make an impact on me. Overall, not terrible but slow and methodical. Almost too slow to stay focused on. I give this a B-.