


Several sequences unfold with a slow-burn quality in which not much happens, enabling Reichardt to foreground their haunted subjectivity. It’s fascinating to watch the director’s style blossom under the restrictions of a more conventional storyline, even as she actively works against it. Yet the archetypical nature of these characters also enables “Night Moves” to examine the practical ramifications of reckless social rebellion in palatable terms. Sarsgaard is uniformly creepy and mostly relegated to the sidelines. Fanning’s character is even less clearly defined, as the evolution of her radicalism never quite gels with her upper class background. As the situation grows more complicated and their mutual trust begins to fray, “Night Moves” shifts into a taut look at the boundaries of extremism rather than its motivating principles.Įventually, however, the scenario runs into clichéd territory, suffering in part from Eisenberg’s unconvincing transition into a jittery psychopath. In the wake of the action, the emphasis shifts from the characters’ drive to their increasingly paranoid mindsets. It’s an explosive moment in more ways than one. In a particularly revealing moment after they rig up the dam and flee, the camera remains on their faces as they hear a distant boom. Like Hany Abu-Assad’s Palestinian suicide bomber portrait “Paradise Now,” Reichardt amplifies the imperfection of the task at hand and the lack of cohesion among the group members that results from working outside the system. Rather than foregrounding eco-terrorist rhetoric, Reichardt eloquently humanizes their plight. While at times that makes it difficult to comprehend their behavior, it also allows their expressions to drive the story more than the implicit politics. Her story foregrounds their ambiguous emotional state: Outside of some perfunctory dialogue at a group meeting in the opening scene, we hear almost no ideological debates surrounding the purposes of their actions. Collaborating with her usual writing partner Jon Raymond and aided by “Meek’s Cutoff” cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, Reichardt fills the scenario with details of the lush, nature-loving valley where its characters reside, contrasting the serenity of the environment with the activists’ constant unsmiling temperaments. Only a political film by implication, “Night Moves” predominantly involves the moment-to-moment uneasiness of risky business.Īt the same time, “Night Moves” frequently takes the form of an anti-thriller. No other Reichardt film falls into this neat construction, which puts extremist action of any stripe under the microscope and magnifies its immediate ramifications. While the first hour steadily tracks their strategy sessions, the second finds them trapped by the fallout of the act.
#Night moves cast movie
When the movie begins, the trio have already joined forces in Southern Oregon and concocted a plot to blow up one of the region’s oppressive dams. At its center is a trio of disturbed radicals: Josh ( Jesse Eisenberg), a soft-spoken farmworker, Dena ( Dakota Fanning), a high school dropout who comes from a wealthy family, and ex-marine Harmon ( Peter Sarsgaard). While set in modern times, “Night Moves” could have been made decades ago, in the heyday of eco-terrorist groups like Earth First! and the Earth Liberation group, whose participants provide a model for the movie’s protagonists. ‘Falcon Lake’ Review: Heartbreak - and Possibly Ghosts - Lurk Under a Melancholy Summer Romance
