Gus Van Sant’s celebratory biopic on Harvey Milk, the gay-rights activist and San Francisco City Supervisor martyred by assassination in 1978. However useful as pep rally or memorial service, the film comes up short as drama, relying altogether too much on Position Statements, Slogans, Bromides, primarily through the protagonist’s stump speeches and a serialized in-the-event-of-my-death tape recording that ties the narrative together. (Screenplay by Dustin Lance Black.) What nonetheless humanizes all this plain talk is the transformational performance of Sean Penn, a totally new and different Sean Penn, almost birdlike in his lightness and tightness, very vulnerable in his worries and very touching in his joys, unshy about the kissy-face with James Franco and Diego Luna, bravely not avoiding homosexual stereotype yet nicely avoiding caricature. It immediately takes its place alongside the performances of Mystic River, Dead Man Walking, Casualties of War, maybe one or two others, in the actor’s best-of portfolio. With Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, Alison Pill, Victor Garber. (2008) — Duncan Shepherd
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