Burn Country

2016
4.8| 1h42m| en| More Info
Released: 16 April 2016 Released
Producted By: Gigi Films
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A former war journalist now writing for a paper in Northern California is drawn into conflict at home.

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Reviews

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!
Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
Diagonaldi Very well executed
CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!
Prismark10 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.
Michael Ledo Osman (Dominic Rains) worked in Afghanistan as a reporter/ interpreter. He left there to come to the US, living with cop Gloria (Melissa Leo) in a small town in California. She is the mother of a reporter still in Afghanistan.He meets a group of hippies and some rural folks. When a man is killed, all Osman wants to do is to find James Franco. The movie has stories and flashbacks to Afghanistan to show us how we are all alike...which I didn't really grasp as this was a community living out of the American mainstream. The people were bat sh** crazy.The plot seemed to drag in circles. The comparisons were half hearted efforts.Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity
Boristhemoggy At first glance Burn Country is quite a simple story, I think drawing comparisons between cultures and showing how expectations of others can be wildly off the mark. However the events which at first seem to be random or at best disconnected, begin to take on a meaning, which for me was drawing comparisons between Afghanistan and it's history and global human nature which is deeply touted in ancient tribal reasoning. Corruption is everywhere, violence is everywhere, tribal management of small social groups is everywhere, but we all do the same thing in our own ways. At the end Osman finds solace in listening to his homeland and feeling connected to his roots, and yet the things he tried to escape were right there with him still in the US, in the way of the US, but following the patterns as his homeland and probably of all countries. The title make absolutely no sense to me at all, but the story is one of tribal living, an almost 'beyond modern rules and law' existence that works simply because it has to. It takes the length of the film for Osman to realise this and while he cannot ever go home, he can immerse himself in the new home in the knowledge that the ways will soon become familiar to him and he leads the same life in a different place.
cdcrb Osman, from afghanistan, is in ca. looking for a job as a journalist. he was formerly the interpreter for an American newsman there and is looking for a better life anywhere but his home. he is staying with the journalists' mother, the local sheriff. before long someone burns up his hosts' mailbox and Osman can't get a pack of cigs in the town general store. do they hate muslims, strangers in general, or what. who knows. before long Osman gets himself in dangerous situations, and really doesn't seem to learn from his experiences. (for instance, when a cop tells me to stay in the patrol car, i'd stay put). people just do not act this way. and I would certainly think that anyone from afghanistan would be very leery. anyway, ian olds, the director, must be close friends with james franco, who plays an unrecognizable pot head here. I am not sure if this is stranger in a strange land territory, or a director not knowing what tale he is telling. the cinematography is very good, though.