I have had a lot of time to be watching movies lately, hence the amount of movie review posts. The latest movie that I watched is called Reservation Road and it had one of the actresses from Requiem for a Dream in it and also Mark Ruffalo. The fact that I was at least somewhat familiar with these actors was part of why I decided to watch it, but I also thought the plot seemed interesting. The movie is about two families in New England, one of which has their son killed in a hit and run accident. The father of the other family is the one who was driving and killed the kid. The premise is rather interesting in and of itself; as the movie progresses we learn that these two men (the father of the dead kid and the guy who killed said kid but whose own son is still alive and well) end up crossing paths in interesting ways although the man with the dead kid is unaware that the other guy is to blame.
I actually was rather impressed with Mark Ruffalo's performance in this movie and I was surprised by that. I didn't exactly expect that I'd think he did particularly well in this role. I think perhaps this was because of the writing rather than his acting ability - for example, I liked Tom Cruise in Born on the 4th of July but didn't enjoy Vanilla Sky. I like Vincent in Law and Order but I won't watch Men in Black because as far as I'm aware he has a rather cheesy role in that movie. I think Mark Ruffalo sort of perhaps looks better with shorter hair actually like he had in this movie rather than longer hair like in other movies. Although I think he should get his chest hair waxed or something... there was a scene where I caught a glimpse of it and there was a decent amount of it and personally I don't like lots of chest hairs. I wonder if he has back hair as well...
Sort of interestingly, I found myself sympathizing with Mark Ruffalo's character (the one who hit the other guy's kid and just drove away) more so than the father of the kid who was killed. I'm not really sure why, honestly, because you'd think that one would sympathize with the man whose son was killed by a driver who then left the scene. Perhaps what influenced it was that Mark Ruffalo's character was divorced and only got to see his son sometimes, otherwise he was in the care of the ex wife. Mark Ruffalo's character definitely tried to be a good father/make his son happy (they shared a love of baseball) so perhaps that was part of it. Also, the other guy had a crop of facial hair and heavy eyebrows and honestly looked kind of creepy. And, he began to have problems in his marriage due to how he and his wife (played by the actress who played a drug addict in Requiem for a Dream) were trying to deal with the aftermath of their son's death - he was very angry at the unknown person who had killed his son and was dwelling on it and was contemplating taking justice into his own hands because he believed the police were inept. His wife on the other hand wanted to focus on their remaining child and being there for her rather than steeping in anger about the accident. SPOILERS to come. (highlight between the # symbols with cursor to read)
# The man whose son was killed eventually does decide to take justice into his own hand and goes out to buy a gun which he then goes to Mark Ruffalo's character's house and threatens him with it (while his son is about to go to sleep in the next room), forces him into the trunk of his car, drives somewhere else and continues to threaten to kill him. A) that's called kidnapping and B) if this were Law and Order and I were Jack McCoy, I would totally prosecute the guy who kidnapped and threatened to kill Mark Ruffalo's character. I mention this because the other day I watched a Law and Order (original version) episode where a mother whose daughter was killed sneaks a gun into the courtroom and shoots the suspect while he testifies. McCoy wants to prosecute the mother because she ended up killing the suspect and people shouldn't take justice into their own hands. His colleagues tell him that no jury will convict the mother because they probably wanted the suspect to be dead as well. However, in Reservation Road, I found the man whose son was killed to be not that sympathetic and I would theoretically prosecute him for the kidnapping. I would build my case by portraying him as unhealthily obsessed with his son's death and unable to let go of his immense anger, which he took out by ruthlessly threatening/attempting to kill the man he believed was responsible. Of course, I'm not a lawyer so this is all just amateur theorizing. Regardless, it's kind of interesting to think about.
# end spoilers.
All in all I would recommend this movie; I thought it was interesting and I thought Mark Ruffalo did a good job in portraying his role. It reminded me a little bit of the book/movie Charlie St. Cloud in that they both involved baseball fans and car accidents.
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