Ned Rifle

Greetings again from the darkness. The third and final entry to writer/director Hal Hartley's trilogy provides a fitting end to the saga that began in 1997 with Henry Fool, and continued in 2006 with Fay Grim. Mr. Hartley's style lends itself well to the indie world and film festival circuit, as he connects with unusually paced and elevated dialogue, an arid-dry sense of humor, and a slew of misfit characters.

The four main characters have been played by the same actors across all three films. Liam Aiken was only 7 years old when he first played Ned, and he becomes the focus of this final chapter. Ned is the son of Fay (Parker Posey) and Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan). When this story picks up, Fay is serving a life sentence in federal prison for terrorist activities, and Henry's whereabouts are unknown … except by "Uncle" Simon (James Urbaniak), the garbage man-turned-poet laureate.

Ned is turning 18 years old and has spent four years in witness protection as part of a family led by a guilt-ridden Reverend (Martin Donovan). Ned has really taken to religion – especially the fire and brimstone vengeance parts. See, Ned blames Henry for Fay's life turn and aims to gain revenge.

The first part of the movie has Ned and Susan (Aubrey Plaza) tracking down Henry. Susan is the grad student supposedly working with Fay on her autobiography, and stalking Simon for his poetic metaphysics. But of course, Susan has secrets and some are less than pleasant.

Once Henry is located, Mr. Ryan provides a nice energy boost and shift in tone. He is one glorious film character … unless of course, you are his son or some other poor schmuck left floundering in his wake of life. He and Ned don't really have much of a bond, but Ryan and Plaza create some fireworks that some may find a bit creepy.

Just keeping up with the rapid-fire dialogue from Henry, Simon and Susan is a cinematic joy, and the off-beat humor prevents the dark material from ever reaching a bleak stage. When Ned visits Fay in prison she asks disgustedly "You're religious?" – making it clear that she, a convicted felon, is extremely disappointed in her 18 year old son. It's played for a laugh and gets one. There is another line spouted by Susan that includes a review of "obscene work indifferent to mainstream approval". We have little doubt that line was written by Mr. Hartley to describe his own work.

What was the point of this film? I was such a big Hal Hartley fan. Those early films were great and had so much promise. 'The Unbelievable Truth' - still a fav. The other early ones, of their time but still lots to enjoy. Henry Foole was good, everything since has been so awful... don't know what happened to Hartley the writer except that he had his success and then had nothing left to say. For him to have so little ideas so as to take characters from an old film (Hal Hartley), which wasn't half bad, and have them drive around to no plot and with nothing to say was really sad. The semi-nudity wasn't worth it either. I turned it off with 2 minutes left to go, I didn't care what the ending was or what profound facial expression the characters would stare into the distance with. I'll try to forget this, enjoy the oldies, and I swear.. after waiting a long time to see this one, I'll never waste my time on a new Hal film again!

I just now learned this is a follow-up to other films, I think it works perfectly fine on its own. It´s lightning fast, a pure script film. There are no transitions shots whatsoever as if the rule on the filming set was "just say your line, hit the mark and let´s move on to the next scene". It certainly cuts the BS. Every scene, every line of dialogue is there for a good reason. The film has nice rhythm and a strong sense of purpose. The humor is dry and quick, symbolism is timely. This film has many virtues, I would recommend it specially to aspiring film makers, as it does much with very little. There are some bits of bad acting, as you could expect, but somehow it isn´t an issue, the script keeps it interesting. There are eloquent speeches with big words but it´s all not that pretentious, it´s quite simple, really. Good stuff

"Decisive, committed, admittedly obscure work indifferent to mainstream approval and unafraid of confrontation with moral and aesthetic absolutes, this, more than you might imagine, is what keeps people from jumping out windows and under trains."

The best of the trilogy for me, playing out the story of the main characters in a coherent way with all that spy nonsense from Fay Grim dropped, and featuring not only Parker Posey but Aubrey Plaza. There are little jabs at religion, commercialism, and university politics, but for the most part the satire is muted in favor of the melodrama - both Henry Fool's son Ned Rifle (Liam Aiken) and the girl he raped at 13 (Plaza) have grown up and are seeking him out for revenge. I have to say though, it was disturbing to hear Plaza's character call the incident from her childhood as the best night of her life, and the sequence of events leading up to the ending weren't all that satisfying.

As all movies should feel - I think this was perfectly timed. 90 solid minutes, I wasn't bored anywhere. The acting is odd in some instances, but overall I enjoyed the entire thing, hence the rating. I'm a big fan of Aubrey Plaza - I may have watched this for her, but in reality the main character does such a good job that I didn't miss her too much when she wasn't on screen. The story is terribly basic and that's not a criticism - very much a compliment. I haven't watched the other movies in this apparent trilogy and this one works very well as a standalone movie, so fret not if you haven't either. If you're slightly deep, this may tickle your fancy. If you're not at all a thinker, then maybe give this one a miss.