PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

johnnyjeremymusic-56956 This film begins with a good premise. In the past a filmmaker like Billy Wilder or an actor like Gary Cooper or Lee Remick could make us care about this film. A good writer would also be able to flesh out the details a bit better, but the premise is a good one.And yet, on screen It is hard not to think that I'm looking at flakey people I meet at a trendy downtown bar who listen to trendy music and drink trendy beer. You know, arrested development types who squander the life force of themselves and others; who have no capacity for self-awareness, who only exist. I just didn't see any depth, any character, any conviction which could suspend my disbelief long enough. The style of this film offered nothing other than a showcase for cinematography; and even there the trendy soundtrack and lighting made the entire effort appear to be nothing more than self-indulgence. It was as though the filmmakers made this for the sole purpose of being able to tell their friends, "hey look at what I did" - and the cinematography is its best quality!The soundtrack, the story, and most importantly the monologues are hollow efforts; self-indulgence writ large. The monologues, mercy the monologues! There's no acting in this film. It's a solipsistic exercise. A series of monologues which keep the film plodding from one scene to another. This is a film nihilists put out who cannot fake their lack of empathy even for their own writing and their own characters.The stars are only given for the technical effort. This is a soulless film.

Morten_5 With "Selma" (2014) and "Arrival" (2016), among others, cinematographer Bradford Young has proved himself one of today's most talented. In "Ain't Them Bodies Saints", Young worked with promising writer-director David Lowery and great actors such as Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck and Ben Foster. In addition to this, the film has a well-composed score by Daniel Hart. In short, this is a movie well worth watching.

Robert J. Maxwell This was written and directed by David Lowery, to whom I give bonus points for originality.A young man, Casey Affleck, accepts blame for wounding a police officer in some tiny retro town in Missouri, although it was his lover, Mara Rooney, who did the shooting. After a few years in the slams, Affleck crashes out and heads towards home, determine to see his girl friend, who still loves him, and his little girl. The cop, who doesn't know who shot him, falls for Rooney and the girl and thinks of them as his family. Everyone in town, including the police, soon learns that the fugitive is on his way. Guess what happens? The central idea -- lawbreaker wittingly heads towards forbidden place for personal reasons -- is hardly new. There are echoes of "One False Move," "Bonny and Clyde", "Falling Down," and "Behold a Pale Horse." What IS new is the treatment. It's all slow and deliberate. Nobody makes wisecracks during action scenes. The musical score doesn't blitz us with electronic noise. The editing is thoughtful enough to let us see what's going on, instead of being the usual maddening instantaneous clips. The acting is restrained, subtle. People think before they speak. And there is a near absence of gore. When Affleck shoots an attacker, it's a medium shot in a river at night.One might carp that the whole project is too dark, which it is. Missouri must never see the sun. But that's a minor thing. It does drag at times and, given the climax, it's rather like watching a fuse slowly sputtering towards a stack of dynamite that never really explodes. There are some loose ends too. I don't know what the title means or where that buried box of treasure came from. I've never warmed up to Casey Affleck. There's always something about to burst out of him when he uses that cracked, whiny voice. I keep waiting for him to bop somebody over the sconce with a baseball bat. But his screen persona fits the role of the laid-back Southern boy just fine.Mara Rooney is as fixed to her role as an enzyme to its substrate. She's a wan, pretty, contralto. If she doesn't smile, it's because the doesn't have much to smile about. Ben Foster, as the once-wounded policeman, now would-be husband, is a strict nonentity in the looks department and that's just great. He's convincing as hell as the sincere and perceptive second male lead.Daniel Hart did the musical score. The melancholy music -- no tunes -- is heard almost constantly but it doesn't interfere with the narrative because it comes in long sheets of drawn-out chords with occasional syncopated hand-clapping or violin plucking. Carter Burwell and my man Philip Glass draw from the same spring.If you begin to watch it, stick with it for a while. Adult sensibilities may take a little getting used to, after all the garbage polluting our screens these days. This one doesn't even have a car chase and there is not a SINGLE VAMPIRE in sight.

John Osburn David Lowery's AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS is a strong silent type of movie, a Lone Star noir full of the unspoken feelings of decent people and the stoic acceptance of what men and women must do when faced with the consequences of their actions. There is more than a touch of nostalgia about it, of a period slightly bygone, sometime in the '70s, perhaps, but with sensibilities that persist to this day, as surely as the ravaged buildings of the Texas town, Meridien, that is the center of its drama. Sunset and dawn bracket the night in this film; there is daylight too, but never a high noon.The persons of the story know those days are past, if they ever were, and that survival is more about flight and concealment than a head-on confrontation on Main Street. Bob and Ruth are lovers, but not violent souls, even though a crime is committed and Ruth has a protector, Skerritt, who talks down those who threaten her with his own threats, and backs them up with a gun. There's a lawman who... READ MORE: http://osburnt.com/ain't-these-bodies-saints/