Excellent but underrated film

Don't listen to the negative reviews

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Liking or hating a movie can have many factors that lead a viewer to develop an opinion upon the whole, without paying attention to the subtle technical details; but finding a film such as TSL, with all its components, scenes and fading moments, a piece of collective brilliance, an ensemble of great writing, cinematography, directing and acting — it is extremely difficult to list the the reasons for how this film cuts deep into the soul of the human condition.I find myself searching in vain for the most proper way of reviewing such a film — a way that could capture the message of an artist par excellence like Mr. Mccarthy — but to review a film of this standard is to encapsulate a myriad of feelings and observations into one hopelessly unfair critique.One can view this movie as trying to show the incommensurability of two drastically incompatible world views. This is a reading that greatly undermines the depth of the film's theme, and shows a lack of insight that cannot even penetrate the outer skin of the onion like scheme of the film."Whatever Happened?" is the question that Peter Wessel Zappfe asked in his famous article The last Messiah; but the answer was obvious. It was "A breach in the very unity of life, a biological paradox, an abomination, an absurdity, an exaggeration of disastrous nature. Life had overshot its target, blowing itself apart."That life has not the meaning — the teleological sense that humans desperately crave — has been known from the times of the ancient Greeks, and echoed by clever artists through the centuries to our present day. The problem of existential nihilism had never any resemblance to other animal problems; this is because it is not a disease that is seen as having its origin in anything other than being human. And if a cure to human angst, to our the essence — the absurdity of the overdeveloped animal — can only be in death, it does not mean that there are no palliatives that can mask the problem.So, what will happen if anchoring oneself to a "foundational firmament" does not work anymore? "Depressions, excesses, and suicides result." But is going back a viable option? that is what the movie tries to answer. We cannot but anchor ourselves to something, be it a religion, or a cause, or the aspects of our own culture; for unleashing yourself from them will only lead to a horrific fall into the soul crushing abysm of being an intelligent animal in a not so intelligent world.

A professor (Tommy Lee Jones) tries to commit suicide by jumping in front of a train, "The Sunset Limited". Another man (Samuel L. Jackson) claims to be his guardian angel. The two men debate their beliefs in the professor's apartment. The professor insists on leaving the apartment and probably go to commit suicide. The other insists on following him and convince him to embrace God.It's a two person play in a confined space. These are two great actors. The debate is constant and unabated. It feels more academic than personal. These characters are not necessarily flesh and blood. The writing is not natural enough and always feels like a play. It has the power of sincerity but lacks the feel of reality. This has the potential of a reveal but the play doesn't take advantage. This is an academic play but it doesn't actually breathe.

The most impressive thing about this film is that it had me sitting and listening to two men talking to each other for a solid hour and a half.In keeping with the tag line—"Nothing is ever black or white"—there is no driving agenda to the film's overall message that I could discern. It's not trying to push Christianity, nor atheism. It simply presents two men's opposing beliefs. The preacher is no perfect Christian, nor the professor an all-knowing atheist, for neither such people exist.What it does do, however, is keep you rooted to your seat. The professor just tried to commit suicide—that's the premise of the film—and the preacher is doing everything in his power to convince him not to try again. So he tells him stories. He challenges his pessimism. He makes no secret of his own belief in God, and the professor makes no secret of what he thinks of that.There are some great points in their conversation, from both sides. You'll probably be compelled to examine your own beliefs and challenge your reasons for having them. And that's what this film succeeds at most of all: provoking a debate between polar opposite beliefs, and leaving no doubt as to the importance of that debate, because a man's life hangs in the balance.Hell, I've been writing this for 200 words and I'm already running out of things to say. But a 1.5-hour movie filled with near-constant dialogue will somehow keep you rooted to your seat. How? Go find out.

This is a good film, with great acting, provided you don't think it's going to be an atheist/theist discussion film. I see many people think that, but that's not what this really is about. The atheist is suicidal, so he isn't representing a typical scientific, optimistic outlook on life as we have grown accustomed to from argumentative professors lately. In fact, most atheists will feel quite uneasy with many of his arguments. To him, everything is futile. You need to see this in the context of the post WW2 era, since he's very much caught up in the holocaust which to him made everything pointless. This is interesting, but in a sense, this is also the film's weakness, that I get the feeling that they have made a film out of a 50 year old drama.(I haven't found out when it was written but it doesn't seem like it was staged before after 2000) You should think that this is a timeless subject, but things have changed.While the preacher, being a lay preacher with a prison background, uses 50 year old arguments, this is not so uncommon for this type. However, in the beginning, I got annoyed when the professor couldn't counter these fairly simple arguments. This may have been the whole point, that the professor was a bit out of it. However, in the end, the professor completely rips through the preacher's arguments as he unleashes all his inner darkness. His depression and bleak outlook of life is what makes the film good. Don't expect to find good arguments for a happy godless life, because there aren't anyone in this movie.