Milk

Milk

I really wanted to rip into this film for being too preachy. However, I found myself really enjoying this bio-picture immensely. Director Gus Van Sant doesn’t add much style to Milk, but he does do an outstanding job creating the world of the gay community in the 70s. You get the feeling this was San Francisco of the 70s.

I’ve come to really hate Sean Penn over the years. He’s a smug little elitist-liberal that believes everyone is stupid. (Don’t worry I lean more left than right.) And, he’s kind of correct, but he’s become this unhappy hack that keeps on pushing his left views on films without first making them entertaining. But…Sean Penn is freaking amazing here as Harvey Milk. With a little makeup and great acting on Penn’s part, I found myself convinced I was watching Milk on screen. Penn put aside his smugness for displaying on screen a very likeable guy.

That’s what this movie does correctly. It gives us a complete picture into how Harvey Milk ended up becoming the first openly gay San Francisco supervisor. And, the movie really has legs when it shows the injustice of San Francisco at the time against the gay community. Luckily, the movie really only focuses in on the gay rights story more so than Milk’s love life. We don’t need to see men making out with men by having it shoved in our faces. They’re gay get over it and let’s see the civil rights aspects of the gay community instead. This was a smart move on director Gus Van Sant’s part. More Americans will find the movie more appealing this way and perhaps be swayed to side with the movement.

The other breakout performance comes from Josh Brolin. His character quietly is having a breakdown (Dan White), but it is carefully measured with each scene until it reaches it boiling point at the end. If you read Milk’s history, then you already know what happened.

Spoiler Alert: What happens after Milk’s murder is even more interesting. It is a shame we never really get to see that part of the story. The movie glosses over it. And I could have easily sat through another 30 minutes of that portion of the story.

In the end, the movie is far from being perfect, mainly because it ends too soon for my taste, but it is still an enjoyable bio-picture. Milk is one of the better movies because it makes it interesting to watch without being too preachy.

Grade: B-