Milk

Milk is the biopic of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to office in the history of the United States. he was a revolutionary, a maverick, and a man deserving of his place in history as an important figure in not just Gay rights but in truth, human rights.

It's a good movie with an outstanding performance from Penn. One of the things I think Penn does so well here is he plays Harvey Milk with a believability b/c he doesn't cartoonize him, he's openly gay but plays it straight if you know what I mean.

The film itself is well structured b/c biopics have a tendency to be difficult simply by the nature of how hard it is to fit a life into a 2 hour movie. Here Van Sant keeps the progression of the story going at a pace that keeps your interest, but never jumps to the next big moment in a jarring fashion, so while you sense the time passing you never feel like anything important has been brushed over.

Another thing Van Sant does nicely is shoot all of Milk's speeches from a low angle so that you feel as if you are watching it from the POV of a member of the crowd.

Aside from Penn's stellar performance the supporting actors are all good, especially Emile Hirsh who brings a sense of energy to his role. Josh Brolin is solid as Dan White but doesn't have enough screen time.

The Dan White character is my main gripe, I mean he does not kill Milk b/c Milk is gay, in fact it is hinted at that he himself may be a repressed homosexual, but the lack of time spent digging deeper into this angle or indeed White's life in general leaves the climax with a one sided emotional core as he comes off as simply a frustrated trigger man.

Another issue is the fact that Milk's two relationships in the film start as sleazy soft porn esque interludes and the second of these never becomes anything more than an annoyance as Diego Luna resembles the Justin Timberlake character from the Love Guru trailers.
Now I can't say what the man's real love life was like but the film didn't present any gay couples in a regular light, gayness was at times presented like a hippie freedom act as opposed to just regular ppl who happen to be sexually attracted to the same gender.

Penn's performance and Van Sant's tight direction, coupled with an interesting story of a very important man make this an engrossing film that could have been even better.

8/10