Ned Rifle

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 ran across "Ned Rifle" because of the good rating that it had on Rotten Tomatoes (Currently, it is at 77%). I also noticed that it had some really good actors in it (Parker Posey, Aubrey Plaza, Martin Donovan, among others), so I decided to take a chance on it. In the opening scene, (for those who didn't see "Henry Fool" or "Fay Grim") it certainly felt like you had to play catch-up. Ned's mother, Fay (Parker Posey) is in prison for being an alleged terrorist, which leads back to what happened in the previous film, "Fay Grim". But, even though I didn't see the previous two films, I was still able to get a good idea of what happened. Director/Writer Hal Hartley does a pretty good job with presenting the information that you need to know, even if you never saw the other films.

The acting is wonderful. Parker Posey does a great job with the little scenes that she has, bringing a lot to such a small role. Liam Aiken is likable as the titular character. He has a way about him, that you want him to succeed in his mission. Aubrey Plaza's signature humor (I won't list the word that is associated with her type of humor, since she revealed that she hates that word), but her line delivery fits perfect with this world that the audience is presented. This brings us to the MVP of the film: Thomas Jay Ryan. Whenever he is on screen as Henry Fool, he knocks it out of the park, bringing a manic energy to the film that helps the second half to propel past the first half. It all culminates in an incredibly tense final 10 minutes. The film is about 81 minutes (including four minutes for opening and closing credits), but it will stick with you long after it is over.

I stumbled across this movie, but I am glad that I took the time to see it. Heck, I might even have to go and seek out the other two movies in this "trilogy". Highly recommended for fans of indie films.

"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.

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

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.