Midnight Special

In Texas, Roy Tomlin (Michael Shannon) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton) are being hunted by the cops for kidnapping eight year old Alton Meyer. Alton's adoptive father Calvin Meyer (Sam Shepard) leads the Ranch filled with his religious followers. They are raided by the FBI. NSA agent Paul Sevier (Adam Driver) is investigating the anomaly that is the boy. Alton shows unnatural powers with light streaming out of his eyes. Roy and Lucas eventually bring him to Sarah (Kirsten Dunst) on a rendezvous with destiny.

This has a great sense of sci-fi realism in a small indie. Shannon simply has intensity. There is a small hiccup when the boy gets captured by the authorities. That section feels disjointed with some logic problems. The movie unnecessarily over-reaches at that point. It could easily streamlined that into something grittier and smaller. In the end, this is a really nice sci-fi indie.

This reminded me of a couple of films, namely Close Encounters and Starman, but with everything good about them ripped out, thrown on the floor and stamped on.

What remained was an overall joyless experience as two sullen, largely monosyllabic mumbling men drove a kid with glowing eyes home for two hours. Of course they had a couple of hurdles to overcome but at no point do you think "Oh no, they're not going to get the glowing eyed kid home". Where previously films of this oeuvre have employed wit, humanity and a sense of wonder to fabulous effect the director of this sullen dross did little other than smash you repeatedly in the face shouting "I AM SERIOUS, I AM IMPORTANT" by making the repetitive turgid soundtrack blare progressively louder and louder. It was bombastic pseudo-intellectual rubbish masquerading as serious cinema.

Just because everyone looks miserable and hardly anyone says anything doesn't automatically make something good. You have to have talent to pull that off and make people care about your morose protagonists despite themselves. Whereas the only comparable thing this nonsense succeeded in doing was making me like a guy from the NSA, basically because he was the only one who seemed capable of speaking in entire sentences and looking slightly interested in what was going on.

I'd rather be forced to sit and watch E.T over and over again Clockwork Orange style for a week than expose myself to this inane garbage again. And I hate E.T.

I really enjoyed most of the movie thanks to the mystery factor, the actors who all play well - may it be the main or the supporting roles or the almost flawless production.

But there's so much build-up for something minor. Potential is definitely there, but disappointing in total.

And I can say with some certainty that Jeff Nichols has a heck of a career ahead of him.

To be frank, after your first 1000 or so IMDb reviews, you get a bit cynical. You start to understand that, in spite of the hype, movies are not as good as they used to be -- more like production-line white-bread, all mapped out and pre-sold into the appropriate distribution channels before the first viewer ever even gets a look -- and that in the same time period, TV has come to surpass film in terms of quality and entertainment value.

And then every now and then you get a film like Midnight Special and for a brief moment you start to think this medium might someday recapture its glory days.

I am not going to tell the story or do anything which will diminish your experience, should you choose to see this film.

I will simply say that, if you believe the primary goal of a movie is to hold your interest and entertain, this one does the job from the first frame to the closing credits.

Boy is that refreshing!

The actors -- not name actors -- were excellent.

The special effects were mind-boggling, especially for an indie.

The script breaks (or bends) some rules of conventional narrative but otherwise is so tight you could use it for a drum solo.

Highly recommended.

((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

A beautiful, touching story. Nice performances. Fascinating subject. And a seductive theory, Enough for a real good film about parenthood and special child, interest of secret services fabulous truth and happiness. A film for a real precise target.