Tagline:
His life changed history. His courage changed lives.Plot:
The story of California's first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, a San Francisco supervisor who was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone by San Francisco Supervisor Dan White.Viewed: 01/02/09
Score: 5/6
I knew nothing about the story of Harvey Milk before I saw this film, but with Sean Penn being one of my favourite actors and Gus Van Sant directing, I figured it was worth some of my time.
Sean Penn gives an amazing performance, at his best when portraying Milk recording onto a tape to be played in the case of his assassination. Supporting cast members are excellent as well, especially Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones. Splicing TV archive footage into the film really captures the atmosphere and ethos of the time period.
Quite how Harvey Milk went from being a closet homosexual working for an insurance company to a prominent gay rights activist is not made clear, most of it is put down to his relationship with Scott Smith, played by James Franco. However, when the switch is made, Sean Penn actually seems to be living Milk's life again and puts over his passionate crusade to ensure homosexuals are treated as equals in the face of lunatic Christian fundamentalism and good old fashioned homophobia.
One weak point in the film was Josh Brolin playing Dan White, a fellow City supervisor with Milk and his eventual murderer. He came across as a non-character, perhaps because not enough is known about him and the writers didn't want to make up history as they went along. White's motives for killing Milk and the Mayor are not explained, again, perhaps because no-one really knows. From what happened in the film it seemed that Dan White blamed Milk and Mayor Moscone for the failure of his own mediocre political career.
However, that aside it is very hard to fault this emotionally gripping piece of cinema and it deserves all the industry awards it gets. The only film I've seen this year that I'd consider buying on DVD.
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