Burn Country

I loved the idea of a movie highlighting the weirdness of far Northern, Coastal California. I also loved the notion the fact that our lead escaped one crazy version of human nature (Afghanistan), only to find another crazy version in California of all places.

Not that much happens. But the lead guy was mesmerizingly good in his portrayal of an awkward, deeply sensitive, almost dorky newcomer to a country and town that he doesn't understand at all.

He's so earnest in wanting to fit in and be hip. But he's in way over his head. Small rural communities have long histories, and in the case of this place, exceedingly weird ones. He hasn't been there long enough to understand the complexity. Yet you really feel for his dilemma. He wants to get a life and a profession, and do something meaningful. He's itching for it.

Melissa Leo is great as the mother of an old friend of our lead. She's an unemotional deputy sheriff, but also a mother and woman. She comes off very natural.

The opening is extremely weird, yet quite effective, because a bizarre stage play leads our main character to view it as "very free and very American." by virtue of its' weirdness.

James Franco is overexposed. I couldn't buy him as the weird town slacker, because I just kept thinking, "Oh that's just James Franco." He was probably miscast anyways.

Nevertheless, I liked it for its originality, and I don't regret watching. But beware for some violence. I could have done without it.

Imagine you, a journalist, were kicked out of your country to seek asylum seeker in a land that you know nothing about. What you do know has been told to you by an American journalist that you became friendly with from your time as war correspondent in your own country, Afghanistan. Now, you are staying with your journalist friend's mother, who happens to be a sheriff in Burn County, everything is new, you speak English, but you aren't aware of customs or mores in you new country, folks you meet are friendly but strange, but you go on a ride along with the sheriff, while she breaks up a family disturbance between husband and his wife, you watch, then pull the husband back when he goes for the wife while she is screaming at him. The fight ends, you go back to your new home. Next day you are out and the husband happens upon you, picks you up, you become new friends. Still, as a newcomer, you know nobody, really, not even the mother of your friend. Many of these instances you happen to be privy to, makes no sense to you, it's not anything you have run into in your own country, but that's totally understandable. This movie is a portrait of what newcomers might see when they come to parts of America. Often what seems to be the usual behavior, and/or business as usual, seems totally bizarre to others. I believe that they told the story beautifully, from the POV of the newcomer and the often confusing manner that some folks in America live.

Ian Olds made the documentary Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi. It showed the working relationship between journalist Christian Parenti and his Afghan colleague Ajmal Naqshbandi during the Afghan War. Naqshbandi was killed by the Taliban.

In this feature film, Osman (Dominic Rains) is a fixer/interpreter to an American journalist now living in rural northern California having been granted asylum status.

Osman lives with the mother of his American journalist friend who obviously loves the thrill of being a war reporter. His mom Gloria (Melissa Leo) is a cop and Osman is very much a surrogate son to her.

Osman needs to fit in, he gets a low paid job as a crime reporter and is very much a fish out of water as he encounters the low life in the town, not far from being hillbillies. One of them is Lindsay (James Franco) who when sober can construct the best hot tubs but disappears and might have killed someone.

Osman also meets some hippy types who treat him nice but underneath there might also be tension as they test his masculinity being a displaced person.

The story was weak and far fetched. There is a film to be told of an Afghan asylum seeker trying to fit in his host country. Here Osman covers up for Lindsay a man he hardly knows and who beat him up when they first met. He then later gets in a fight with some gangster types. The plot just stretched credibility.

A little confusing trying to see this movie as two titles were used. the movie opening title is Burn Country, but some theaters referred to it as the Fixer. Must have been an old title

Under either title , it is a wild and fascinating film, about Osman who is a fixer. Back in Afghanistan he was a journalist who specialized in being Foreign journalist connection to the people, but he was exiled and with the help of a friend, ended up in a small town in Northern California that doesn't meet his expectations of America, but he tries to make the best of it by doing his best in a crappy job at the local newspaper as a police blogger (basically making police reports sound interesting to the public).

He's a foreign man on American soil, but in a place and culture that not a lot of American's see on the daily.

Burn Country starts out with a simple narrative of Osman trying to make good by doing what he does best, journalism, and he decides to take the only job he can get as a journalist and take it far too seriously.

Melissa Leo, an amazing Thespian who changes her look like she was Daniel Day Lewis to do the part, plays Osman's sponsor in the states, a police sheriff who is the mother of a fellow journalist still over in Afghanistan. She has a very motherly relationship, somewhat trading in one son for another.

James Franco was actually very impressive. I've seen him do small movies like this in which he just does a cameo to sell movie tickets I guess, but he does have a critical role in this beyond that. Nothing fancy, he's not doing anything that you have not seen him do in a Seth Rogen film, but you see this method really works as a supporting actor for Dominic Rains' leading man.

A very good leading man too. Very likable and charismatic. He gets you into the character's story, which is good cause it's basically just watching this guy adjust to a culture not his own.

And Burn Country picked the best setting. It was different enough to me that I was a bit of a fish out of water trying to understand how these people live.

Burn Country starts out as a very clear narrative and then gets a little sir real as Osman experiences the culture clash. Very good.

I love weird , interesting 'indie' films that most people dislike but this was a real mess. I went in with an open mind, and little to no expectations and ending up getting nothing out of this. I even read several explanations of what the film meant, what it portrayed but felt completely clueless to why anyone would want to watch this. Bizarre and disconnected