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"GET LOW"
(2010) (Robert Duvall, Bill Murray) (PG-13)

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QUICK TAKE:
Drama: In the 1930s, a small Tennessee town comes alive when a notorious, local hermit decides to throw a funeral party for himself while he is still alive.
PLOT:
It's the 1930s and Felix Bush (ROBERT DUVALL) has lived as an elderly hermit on the outskirts of a rural Tennessee town for nearly four decades, harboring a tragic secret that has haunted him since he was a young man. Sensing that death is close, he decides to throw a funeral party for himself while still alive and invite anyone in the town -- or the county, for that matter -- who has a story to tell about him.

Felix hires Frank Quinn (BILL MURRAY), a down-on-his-luck local mortician, and his young assistant, Buddy (LUCAS BLACK), to help in the planning. Frank is all for it, especially after Felix produces a massive wad of cash. Buddy, though, has some misgivings about planning a funeral for a man who's still alive. Meanwhile, Buddy's wife Katie (LORI BETH EDGEMAN) worries about her open-hearted husband working for a man such as Felix who has such a vile reputation.

But all is not as it seems, especially as Felix reunites with two people who were important to him in the past: Mattie (SISSY SPACEK), a local woman he dated decades earlier; and Reverend Charlie Jackson (BILL COBBS), one of the few people who knows the whole truth about Felix's past. Felix decides to go through with the funeral party and plans to purge his soul of his pain and regret at it.

OUR TAKE: 7 out of 10
I personally like "old guy" movies. They're those flicks in which an aging screen hero goes on one last ride, one last mission, one last adventure and tries to re-capture a little of the ol' glory he tasted back in his prime. I'm all for Clint Eastwood bringing Dirty Harry out of retirement or Harrison Ford dusting off Indiana Jones' fedora and bullwhip. So long as they haven't done anything drastic to their faces - who wants to see a post-plastic surgery Burt Reynolds take one final Trans Am ride as the Bandit - give me the close-ups of the wrinkles, the crow's feet, the gray beard stubble, and the extra beads of sweat from having to ride, rope, and fight.

As such, I'll watch pretty much anything Robert Duvall does. And his latest effort, "Get Low," is further testament of the appeal of "old guy cinema." In the film, Duvall plays a surly recluse in rural, Depression-era Tennessee who decides to throw himself a funeral party while he is still alive. Never mind that the townsfolk all hate him and have stories, most of them exaggerated and false, to tell. Never mind that local kids throw rocks at his windows and make fun of him behind his back. Never mind that he isn't welcome in any of the local stores. Duvall's Felix Bush is at a point in his life where he just doesn't give a…

Well, you know. A character on screen can't get that done with life and make it believable if he is still in his 40s or even 50s. It has to be a character and an actor like Duvall, well into his 70s. That face has lived that life. Those eyes have seen the things that have gotten him done with it all.

If the film just had Duvall and this quirky, haunted, idiosyncratic codger, it probably would have been enough for me. But director Aaron Schneider and screenwriters Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell populate their story with a wealth of smaller characters and cast performers who nail the parts perfectly. Bill Murray continues an impressive string of character parts with his role here as Frank Quinn, a local mortician who is fed up with the local populace not dying quick enough to keep him in business. His faithful assistant, Buddy (Lucas Black), is practically goodness and honesty incarnate - a perfect counterpoint to Frank's opportunism.

At the same time, the Felix character is softened by two people he comes back into contact with once word of the funeral party gets out. The first is Mattie (Sissy Spacek), a local woman who once dated Felix decades earlier and who lost her sister in a house fire around the same time Felix decided to disappear from the world. The second is Reverend Charlie Jackson (Bill Cobbs), a holy man who Felix travels to see in Illinois because he is the only other person in the world who knows his full story. And just in case Felix can't get the words out at the funeral party, he'd like Charlie to tell all so Felix can die in peace.

The story is told with a lot of gentle humor and human observations. At one point, Felix tells Buddy, "We like to think that good and evil are far apart. But often they're just all tangled up." He's, of course, talking about himself. But with Duvall delivering the lines, it's like a parable at bedtime from a man in the twilight of a glorious, light-filled career.

If you like to get your money's worth by watching great actors act in stories well told, this is a movie for you. I give it a 7 out of 10. (T. Durgin)




Reviewed September 6, 2010 / Posted September 10, 2010


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