Good But Not Great

Rating: 8/10 (15 December 2008)

Gus Van Sant's rock-solid account of the rise of San Francisco politician Harvey Milk and his efforts to bring awareness to gay-rights issues is supremely capable and engaging, but there was something about the whole thing that just felt a bit uninspired to me.
I knew absolutely nothing about Milk's story before seeing the film -- I was all of three when Milk was assassinated -- so I was very interested in it from a historical perspective. However, I just didn't connect to it on an emotional level. I'm not sure why, because I'm a chump for a good old fashioned underdog story -- which "Milk" certainly is. And there's almost nothing negative I can say about the film that accounts for my lukewarm reaction to it. Sometimes there's just an intangible "something" missing from a film that prevents me from responding much to it, and that's the case here.
It does boast a tremendous performance from Sean Penn though, completely lacking in the hamminess Penn has been guilty of in his more recent film appearances. He unfussily gets down to the business of playing the character of Harvey Milk without self-concsiously reminding us that he's Sean Penn playing him. Weirdly, despite Milk being such a flamboyant character, Penn's performance is unshowy. Of the supporting cast, I was most impressed with Emile Hirsch, who plays a member of Milk's campaign committee. Hirsch contributes a great deal of energy to the film whenever he's on screen, and the scenes featuring him and Penn together are some of the movie's best.
For once, I didn't like a Danny Elfman score. It's too obtrusive and is at odds with Van Sant's typically objective style. But other than that, I thought the film was extremely well done.
My comment may have already made this apparent, but I'm rather puzzled at my own reaction to the film. Instead of being able to give it an enthusiastic endorsement, I rather thought that it was a good but not great 2008 offering.
Grade: A