ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Hank Jokos Sean Penn is a great actor, the best of his generation, so it would seem a bit much to think that he would be a great director. This is what I had in mind when I went to see 'The Indian Runner'. I couldn't be more wrong. Featuring great performances all around, Penn manages to succeed on almost every level. Bold, moving, tough, full of tender sadness, this film is a unique take on brotherhood and loss. Penn proves that he is not only an amazing director, but he is also a very brave screenwriter. The issues he chooses to feature are far from safe and he treats his characters so tenderly, even if they are broken beyond repair, that demonstrates a fascinating voice of his own, something very rare in a debut film. His latest film,'The Last Face', is facing terrible reviews but that doesn't mean Penn isn't a courageous artist. Using his fierce need for truth on what it means to love, to suffer, to exist, we might live long enough to see Sean Penn deliver his masterpiece. But even if we don't, we will always have 'The Indian Runner', and that's no small deal.

buiger I strongly disagree with the critics this time. I find it distressing and disturbing that in all these "avantguarde" movies, whether in Hollywood or in Europe, being crazy, irresponsible, inconsiderate and harmful to yourself and society is considered acceptable, even positive, along the lines of: "Oh the poor boy, he is just confused, he needs help".The poor boys do not need help, they need to be locked up with the key thrown away into the ocean... This only makes society more violent, our kids will never learn that they should become responsible citizens, since, when watching these movies, it looks like you can do whatever you want, whenever you want and to whomever without paying any penalty whatsoever (in this movie, Frank even kills a man for no reason apart from his own inner rage, and then he simply rides away into the sunset like some western hero with his sheriff brother watching him go...). No wonder our society is falling to pieces!One critic says that the Director Sean Penn must be familiar with split personalities and also violent ones in order to have made this film. This is one of the few things we agree upon. You have to be one sick motherf##### to have written the screenplay and directed this film, not a genius!

frankenbenz Love him or hate him, Sean Penn demands respect. Acting accolades aside, Penn established himself as a director with immense potential with 1991's The Indian Runner. Channeling the works of John Cassavetes and Bob Rafelson, IR is a complex character study inspired by Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman." Set in the late 1960's / early 1970's, IR is an homage to American New Wave cinema, a movement that helped revolutionize Hollywood. Penn's nostalgia for what is arguably the greatest decade in American film-making history is undeniable and translates so convincingly on the screen, IR could easily be mistaken for a film made twenty years before it was. From IR's muted palette, it's washed out colors, to the painstaking detail of the production design, Penn managed to craft a near perfect American film.The story of two very different brothers, one calm the other rough, is heartbreaking and emotionally raw. David Morse and Viggo Mortenson who play the two brothers, turn in flawless performances that are tortured, haunting and impossible to look away from. Penn's writing is stark, realistic, subtle and poignant all at once, hinting at the possibility he would help re-establish a lost tradition of small, straight forward, but intellectual complex films. But despite IR being cut from the same cloth as Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces, it proved to be a box office flop, unlike FEP which was a hit in 1970. Perhaps Penn's debut came 20 years too late, long after American audiences had forgotten about the Vietnam War and right after they'd grown complacent with Reaganomics or Bush 1's New World Order. Or perhaps IR was made 17 years too early, where today's climate is as soured by a pointless war as it was back in 1970. Time warps aside, Sean Penn should be respected for writing and directing one of the better American films made in the last 38 years.

desperateliving There are a few of us who feel that Sean Penn is one of the major driving forces in American cinema, an actor of pure artistic intentions, utter sincerity and empathy, and thoughtful (if often misconstrued) politics. He's kind of an heir to a few different giants -- Brando, in terms of rough sexuality and pugnacity; Nicholson, in terms of intelligence as an actor (he shares with both a volatile, sometimes over-the-top acting style and tendency to play human beings with emotions rather than playing acting techniques); and Cassavetes, emphasized with this film (which he dedicates to him). He's more meticulous and crafty than Cassavetes, but just as emotionally direct. (And like him, there may be times where you don't know what to think of what you're seeing; I think that's true of anything original, or anything that eschews typical film conventions.) But despite that similarity, the film isn't quite real -- the Indian mythos, the narration of David Morse, Viggo Mortenson hopping on a moving train. It's the stuff of hazy dreams. The whole picture is imbued with a quiet feeling -- you wish you could show it to those on the right who hate Penn for his outspoken politics, just to prove that he cares deeply about exactly the type of people they think he and his Hollywood friends are against.At first the Indian stuff is a little cheesy, but it leads up to a climax where it really works and feels organic. More than being an actor who can direct, Penn is at times a real master -- he's got a rare gift of ending films with a real punch, without it being cheap. Here, the film gets more technically flamboyant as it goes along -- the camera moves a little more, the inter cutting between a few different scenes gets quicker -- and it ends wonderfully. You have to have a certain willingness to go along with the story that Penn's telling (many times characters do things that don't make any logical sense, but emotionally it fits), and the semi-metaphysical closing really worked for me.Part of the value is in the chance to see good actors work; it's strange that actors known for their histrionics so often direct films that are completely devoid of showiness in terms of acting. That is to say, when Mortensen freaks out on his wife (Patricia Arquette, whose constant squeals are incredibly -- and aptly -- uncomfortable), it's tense because of the exchange of emotions and not because of any actorly shaking or screaming. Penn is a very generous director, and I think that's shown by his allowing Charles Bronson to do some of the finest work of his career. The movie feels very indebted to the '70s, what with a few of the zooms, the folk/rock music, and the kind of small, rural movie this is that rarely gets made anymore. (It owes something to Dennis Hopper's own films, I think; specifically in Mortensen's speech about the "math kids.") 8/10