Ned Rifle

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.

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.

Ned Rifle ends the Henry Fool trilogy in classic Hal Hartley style, with damaged people unable to connect or to explain themselves.

This was a relief after Fay Grimm, the Henry Fool sequel that occurred during Hartley's dalliance with genre storytelling, something he failed to ever get a handle on.

The movie begins as a revenge tale, with Henry's son deciding to hunt down and kill his father for ruining his imprisoned mother's life. Along the way he joins up with a mysterious and sexy scholar with a plan of her own.

That description makes it sounds like a genre film after all, and in a way this movie ably bridges classic Hartley with genre Hartley.

The original cast is still there and is excellent, with a slightly mad Henry and a disillusioned Simon. New to the trilogy is Aubrey Plaza as the mystery woman. Plaza is a perfect Harley actor able to work within his peculiarly affectless emotionalism.

This movie is what I expect from Hartley; quirky humor, opaque characters, complex motives, and within that more emotion than one might expect. While it's not quite up to the level of early Hartley films like Trust or Surviving desire, it definitely scratches the Hartley itch.

For someone who's never been gone.

Admittedly, I'd do well to see a few of Hartley's films again — and catch a couple I've missed — but this one hit me as straight-on as nothing of his since 'Simple Men' (one of my three favorite movies ever!).

The droll, deadpan surface level of the dialogue once again serves to convey an *immense* amount of thought, anguish, and backstory behind each character, with their wounds, indignations, and strivings. The intersections are never less than enlightening, as each has to truly grapple with the other (Hartley once said he wasn't interested in writing other than "strong-willed characters"), finding, at every turn, no small amount of articulation of one's desires is required just to cope.

Sounds like a drag? This stuff's hilarious! "I know what it *means*, Fay." "And then, afterwards, he still didn't introduce me." "Oh ... you're religious?"

Complainers remind me of what Atom Egoyan once said about the responses to his early films, contending that they were "cold": "To me, it's almost operatic ... they're *so* far gone, they could barely muster the energy to kill themselves." (paraphrasing from memory, here.) Similarly, in Hal Hartley's films, every look, every gesture, has so much boiled down into it that only the truly-astute would notice the immense amount of ground covered in this ostensibly-sparse 94 min.

(Best screening I've ever attended at the Laurelhurst Theater here in Portland, too! Even subtle, little jokes — the kind that "barely happen" — got people knowingly chuckling, and I had a nice conversation with a woman in lobby about the latest issue of 'Cometbus' that I was reading: "What's he doing nowadays? Me and my friends had been wondering!" He's around. We're all around, it seems!)

Hallelujah.