Brave New Jersey

I was born and raised in New Jersey, so I am quite familiar with this Orson Welles' broadcasting event and even though it took place before I was born it is well known by me and probably everyone there. It's a true story, but it has a folklore feel to it. This little, sweet film barely covers the broadcast itself. It show the effects on the population in another small nearby town in a comedic way. It's well shot, well acted by all and while it's nothing special, it is a nice little movie showing what something like this can bring out in people, both good and bad. Humans can be silly things. Tony Hale of "Veep" fame is the lead and he is good, but like I said, so is everyone. There's a humorous running gag about a Polish boy who is in this a lot without a single word of dialogue. He seems more sane than many of the New Jersians shown here.

This movie suffers in the first place from a boring and disjointed plot. And that is a kiss of death for any film. It starts there. The basic plot situation makes one sit up - the doings of a number of people in an small town in the New York area who believed the by now legendary radio play that Orson Welles did with the H.G. Wells story War of the Worlds - a story about the Martians attacking earth. It was done in the form of news announcements and according to legend many people believed it was true and panicked. Brave New Jersey sets out to tell story of a number of them. And right there it all falls to pieces because the description of the plot is the most exciting part. For the rest it is mediocre acting, bad story line, boring characters... in fact mediocre soap opera. Don't bother with this movie. Rather stare at the wall.

This movie is a period piece, centering around a sleepy little town and their reactions to Orson Welles historic "War of the Worlds" broadcast -- as the story goes, this broadcast was interpreted by some as a real attack from outer space. And so, the movie has its premise, as this farming community is thrown in to chaos on Halloween night, believing they are about to be invaded by martians.

"Brave New Jersey" is cartoonish in its depiction of 1938 rural America. These don't feel like people, and they don't even feel like characters. The interpretations are modern enough, but most of them feel like they're templates being pulled from a book of "small town" archetypes.

A preacher experiencing a lapse in faith. A burned out war hero trying to recapture former glory. An overweight, inept sheriff. A soft spoken protagonist who can't find the words when it comes to the woman he loves. She herself is trapped in a marriage with a man that clearly doesn't care about her as anything other than a trophy. And so on. These people were given one note to play, and they play it loud and hard. You know what's going to happen to them the moment they finish their first sentence.

Though the movie is billed as something of a comedy, this simple characterization isn't the joke. The joke is, "isn't it silly people really believed this was happening to them?" There's a real story here, these people truly believe they're about to die, and it has a message behind that idea, but it feels really cutesy and trite. The drama feels cut short by the silly vibe, and the silly vibe doesn't really land because it's still trying to have legitimate drama. At times, when the two halves clash the hardest, it can be legitimately difficult to watch. It's oil and water.

Between those moments, the movie just feels kind of dopey, and saccharine, and occasionally even a little anachronistic. Nobody acts like this, and nobody ever acted like this. Any of the good vibes this movie tries to trade in are completely lost on me because it can't decide what it really wants.

Cannot recommend.

Had fairly high hopes for this film. Thought it might be one of those little diamonds in the rough you come across every so often. At least the story seemed to offer potential, but alas, in the end, there was little to feel good about except the well disciplined 1:26 run time.

I suppose there were a few bright spots, though certainly not in the drawing out of the characters. Instead of this small town being populated with a few delightful, original odd-balls, what we get instead are mostly unlikeable, two-dimensional cardboard cut outs. I mean, when the character whose scenes you're most looking forward to is a kid (Grace Kaufman), that tells you a lot.

Maybe I should have gone 4 stars, but the film was easy enough to look at, and like I said earlier, they did at least keep it short.

I found the movie to be refreshing and easy to watch. The acting was done very well. The plot never lost my attention. I will watch it again and I highly recommend this film as a good family watch. It has all the components needed to hold you on the edge of your seat, mixed with a little humor and enough drama to come off cleanly believable. I loved it.