Night Moves [2013]

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Jordan Dodd

Directed By Kelly Reichardt

I thought this one was great. Not fantastic, nothing ground-breaking here, but a nicely shot indie flick isn’t something I’ll turn down. This one was tension filled, though the key to this was its subtlety. What happens next can’t be predicted. Yeah, you know that they are planning to blow up a dam, but some basic spanners thrown into the works created some great suspense. The plot is sparse, but enough to make for an entertaining watch. I’m sure it is sure to stir up discussion re- enviro-twits but I don’t think that was the point of this movie at all. That they were who they were was just a setting for the rest of the story to unfold. There isn’t a lot of meat to plot, the ending really threw me off completely as well, but I think this is a good watch for a few reasons.

The tension I thought was great and really well done, the movie was filled with superb cinematography (which was just beautiful on many occasions, on others, simply capturing the emotions of a face, no words spoken) and the ambient-like, subtle soundtrack to accompany the pretty pictures was bang-on and each segment fit each scene. Lastly, I thought Eisenberg (sp?) did a fantastic job, as did Fanning in her role. I’m not sure why so many people seem to dislike Eisenberg, he seems to get some flak, albeit mostly from keyboard warriors; this is now two films from this year with two (or three) really distinct characters (The other movie being him and his double, who he very effectively played as a completely different character).

In this movie his character is entirely different again: he is doing things for reasons he doesn’t seem to fully believe with his heart. He seems to play a criminal with an inkling of a conscience. Its a trait that I haven’t really seen played this well. The other actors had smaller screen time and were all solid, if unspectacular. There were no real deep, intriguing characters. But then again, this wasn’t a character driven movie as much as one driven by emotion, moral beliefs and the behaviors that follow, whether rational or otherwise, and the conflict that can be a result of acting on pure emotion, no matter what it is.

The way this was shot and the soundtrack give it an extra point from me.

8/10