Ned Rifle

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.

I probably should have seen the first two in this trilogy first, since there are a lot of plot references to them, but...I didn't, and I probably won't. Because I've already seen the end result, see. This is a textbook definition of an offbeat movie, and it hits much more often than it misses. Aubrey Plaza really nails it - if you're even a slight fan of her work, you just gotta see her in this one. Everyone else is pretty good as well, but I was focused more on Ms. Plaza.

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!

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.