The Messenger: A message to remember

The Messenger tells the telling story of two officers in the Casualty Notification Team - the team that has the rather challenging job of telling the next-of-kin that their loved one was a casualty in war. A job that is exceptionally harder than would seem and often pushes the two men in areas they hadn't foreseen.

The Messenger, to some degree, is a classic 'training day' film where an older officer teaches the protocol to a young recruit, a war veteran in this case, and soon realizes that he has a thing or two to learn. Both Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster do admiral jobs in their individual roles. Foster, the more tortured of the two, struggles with the needs of his youth and that of his emotional ailments.

This is an important film and focuses on areas we don't really think about much. The manifestation of horror and war's widespread sweep are truly exposed here. This along with The Hurt Locker and the In the Valley of Elah make an excellent trio of Iraq war related movies.