The Messenger

Starring:  Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster
Drama, Rated R (2009)

Will Montgomery (Foster) is a war vet recently returned from and injured in Iraq who has only three months remaining in his Army contract.  He is assigned the extremely difficult task of notifying soldier's families that they have died in combat.  He is put under the command of slightly off the wall, lonely, and recovering alcoholic Tony (Harrelson).  The two of them go about their duties and strike up an unexpected friendship in the process.

• This movie gives you an inside look at a job that you know someone has to have but maybe haven't given a whole lot of thought to.  It is certainly a job that I would NEVER want to have.
• The relationship between the two men goes through some ups and downs and they learn a lot more about each other as Will deals with a break up and Tony confronts his alcohol problem. 
• There are some slow moments.  The tone of the movie is very low key and mellow but overall it was good.

4 STARS

Pandorum

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster
Suspense Thriller, 2009 (Rated R)

Two astronauts awaken after an extended slumber on a space ship to a nightmare of killer mutated creatures and more questions then answers as they try to recover their memories and piece together what happened to derail their journey to a newly discovered planet called Tana. They encounter other survivors and attempt to keep the ship from shutting down so that they can continue onto their destination.

• I remained interested as the movie went on and more and more questions were answered about who they were and why they were there.
• Overall decent movie but it didn't knock my socks off in any way.

3 STARS