Movie: "Get Low"

[Bob Pr.]

103 min., color. Starring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray.

Robert Duvall is one of my all-time favorite actors and here he gives a worthy performance as a person suffering guilt, a self-imposed 40 year sentence of being a hermit, and a search for redemption (shades of his "The Apostle" and "Tender Mercies") -- themes he apparently treasures.

In this story, word of the death of an acquaintance prompts elderly Felix (Duvall) to think of his own passing and make plans for it. He's been a hermit for 40 years (for reasons revealed at the end of the film) and such a thoroughly cantankerous old codger that the townspeople trade stories and speculate about.

Felix visits the local undertaker (Bill Murray), an oleaginous salesman who'll do anything to make a buck. Felix wants his funeral service before he dies and the undertaker arranges it.

The acting of Duvall and Murray make the film come alive and worthwhile. Any other competent actors would have made it a dud.

Set in Georgia in the early 1930s (soon after the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression), those world events seem to have no effect on these people. Never mind, the joy of the movie is seeing these two actors display their wares.

I'll give it 7 of 10 stars for their performances.

[Retriever Mama]

I have this in my Netflix Q.