Witness

⭐ 7.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

This is an 80s cop movie in which Harrison Ford has to investigate a murder with the only witness being an Amish boy, and eventually gets hurt and needs to spend time hiding/recovering with the Amish community. Essentially, it's Amish The Last Samurai. At times it's slow and hard boiled, but it's also romantic with the star crossed lovers, and also a pretty interesting dive into Amish lifestyle.

Any media about the Amish always kinda borders on me thinking I know more than the showrunners, yet also realizing I don't know much about my doctrinal cousins. I think this was pretty authentic and neither praised nor demonized their ways. It was a cool exploration of that culture and what could happen when things like violence and crime are at their doorstep. Not sure how I felt about the conclusions, but I thought it was a worthy endeavor. I also enjoyed them speaking of "plain" clothing when they wore what only the coolest of cats in the city would dare wear in public.

So yeah, it was a cool movie that I enjoyed, but it was also pretty slow and characters made some pretty odd decisions. So essentially it was a classic 80s drama. It was good but never moved me much one way or the other.

Shout out to my man Viggo Mortensen as essentially an extra with no lines. Looks great in plain clothing.