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Reviews
Neo Ned (2005)
Really About Belonging !Beware Spoilers!
Like everywhere else, this film has just scored big with a packed audience at the San Diego Film Festival. Director Van Fischer said that distributors can't figure out the audience demographic. Well, if a movie about 2 gay cowboys found its niche in Oscarland, I think this one can too. This has 'indie hit' written all over it BECAUSE it's a controversial premise that delivers. Give us a little credit, will ya?
I won't repeat everything said re: excellent performances (all true) and gripping, intelligent script (also true). A special kudo should also go to Fischer, who managed to just stand back and let the story do its thing without getting in the way. It seems very hard for many directors to trust their actors and writer, but that's just what Fischer has done.
What struck me most about Ned - our anti-hero - is what Renner managed to etch into his face - his aching need to belong. He's like a little lapdog throughout, trying to please anyone who can get past his bravado: clinging to his favorite 'goon' orderly when released at a bus station, kissing Rachel when she translates his racist rhetoric as mutual attraction, and replaying his mother's favorite video because it makes her happy - even though it's of her exploiting his pain on a national talk show. Though written very effectively as a comedy, Neo Ned looks at the tragic lengths a person will travel in order to be part of a family - any family. Ned tries to find this in the Aryan Brotherhood, but they reject him because he's not hateful enough. He finally achieves his goal by reuniting with his dad - in prison. Not a happy ending for most people, but it's only when incarcerated that Ned finally feels like most people - loved.
I would disagree with the Scottish comment that retribution is the driving goal behind Rachel's final crime (Union's character). Ned wants to help her overcome her fear of the abuser so she can move on, but when she won't go inside the man's office with Ned, he takes second-best - i.e. beating the guy. When Rachel does appear, she's simply shaking, terrified that her childhood molester is moving toward her. She's brought Ned's gun because of her panic, not her premeditated eye-for-an-eye mentality. Bloodthirsty American I may be, but I certainly didn't condone her crime. I don't think the writer Tim Boughn asks us to. Far from supporting a get-off free vigilante attitude, Boughn throws his main character in jail for twenty years. The fact that this perhaps seems like a character success proves how swept up into Ned's value system we are (in his childlike moral code, the 'good guys' have won). And no, European countries may not have the legacy of slavery we have here (since they saved it for their colonies), but they certainly have prejudices and histories of their own which should resonate with audiences (and plenty of current race relation problems they may be choosing to ignore).
Finally, a word about realism. Van Fischer said in his Q&A that this film definitely requires a suspension of disbelief, and he's right. I can't think of a black woman I know who would date a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi, but I know plenty of women of all backgrounds who love their man precisely because they see through his game. Rachel knows from the beginning that Ned is full of it, that he's playing the race card because he can't think of anything better to provoke people. And how different is that from a crowing Romeo who really just wants to be cuddled? The masks might change, but the right partner sees through them all the same.