LET HIM GO

Name: LET HIM GO
Item: LET HIM GO
Author: Tess Farrand

"Protect Your Family at All Costs"

Family Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

LET HIM GO follows a retired Montana sheriff and his wife, who try to rescue their grandson and widowed daughter-in-law from her new husband’s abusive family in North Dakota. When the grandparents show up in the small North Dakota town and ask questions about the husband’s family, things start getting complicated. Eventually, their widowed daughter-in law’s new family takes matters into the own hands to make sure they don’t leave, and things get violent. Will the grandparents prevail in bringing those they love back to safety?

LET HIM GO is a well-paced, dramatic thriller with excellent acting and strong positive values. The lead characters, played well by Kevin Costner and Diane Ladd, try to provide the best for their family, love one another well, care for their animals, and value protection. The movie also has a brief Christian comment about judgment and a conversation about preaching too much “fire and brimstone” and not enough grace. That said, although the antagonists also have family values, they’re warped and clearly can’t be trusted. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for strong violence and foul language.

Content:

(BB, C, LL, VVV, N, A, D, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview as the lead characters try to provide the best for their family, love one another well, care for their animals, and value protection (it’s clear, though, that the antagonists also have family values, but they’re warped and clearly not to be trusted), there’s a brief Christian comment about judgment and a conversation about a father preaching too much “fire and brimstone” and not enough grace

Foul Language:

10 obscenities, four strong profanities, seven light profanities

Violence:

Brief very strong violence and some other violence includes a man shoves his stepson and strikes his wife across the face, there’s a comment about an abusive father, a drowning death is mentioned, man shoots horse to put it out of its misery, men get into a tussle, man is shoved into a dresser, and there’s a little blood, mother slaps her son to make a point and asks him to recount how he hit his wife, mother hits a woman across the face too, husband points a gun at men who threaten his wife, and then a mother character gets ahold of it and holds an axe up too, man cuts off another man’s fingers with an axe, and there’s lots of blood, woman pushed down the stairs, men throw punches, woman accidentally shoots someone in the face and then intentionally in the chest, house burns, woman shot through the chest with depicted blood splatter

Sex:

No sex scenes or sexual immorality (a newlywed couple kisses, and a married couple kisses)

Nudity:

Baby gets a bath, but no private parts shown

Alcohol Use:

Alcohol use

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Smoking, as it was common during the setting of the movie, and doctors offer morphine to a patient, but he doesn’t take it; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Subtle threats, man holds a boy hostage, Native American character recounts a story about being mistreated.

More Detail:

LET HIM GO follows a retired Montana sheriff and his wife, who try to rescue their grandson and widowed daughter-in-law from her new husband’s abusive family in North Dakota. LET HIM GO is a well-paced, dramatic thriller with excellent acting and strong positive values, but MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for strong violence and foul language.

Set in the 1950s, LET HIM GO begins with a Montana family on their property. A retired sheriff named George and his son, James, take care of their horses before coming for an early breakfast with their wives and George’s grandson, Jimmy. Everything seems perfect, but it’s obvious that George’s wife, Margaret, oversteps some boundaries on parenting. Later that day, George goes out looking for his son, since his horse has come back to the property, but he’s nowhere to be found. When George follows the trail, he finds his son dead in a clearing.

Cut to a wedding. James widow stands before George and Margaret at a wedding ceremony where she marries another man named Donnie, whose family is from North Dakota. On a different day, Margaret sees Donnie and Lorna on the street with Jimmy. They all have ice cream cones, but young Jimmy accidentally drops his cone, and Donnie lashes out at him and Lorna physically. The incident horrifies Margaret.

Lorna and Donnie move back to North Dakota to be closer to Donnie’s family, taking Margaret and George’s grandson Jimmy with them. However, Margaret isn’t going to put up with Jimmy and Lorna get mistreated. She has the bright idea to go to North Dakota and seek Jimmy and Lorna out, to keep them safe and away from the belligerent Donnie.

Once Margaret effectively sways George to come along, they encounter a few people who know Donnie’s family. Can they help point them in the right direction?

Thankfully, George and Margaret do find Jimmy and Lorna in town, but now they must deal with Donnie’s possessive and physically aggressive family to get them back to safety.

Based on a novel by Larry Watson, LET HIM GO is a well-paced, dramatic thriller. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner are well matched and play off well with one another in their shared screen time. Lesley Manville is very creepy as the matriarch who’s territorial over her family. The movie also has great costumes for the movie’s setting of the mid 1950s, with a solid soundtrack.

LET HIM GO has a strong moral worldview. The lead characters try to provide the best for their family, love one another well, care for animals, and value protection. That said, it’s clear that although the antagonists also have family values, they’re warped and clearly can’t be trusted. The movie has a brief Christian comment about judgment and a conversation about a father preaching too much “fire and brimstone” and not enough grace. MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for older teenagers and adults for violence and some foul language.

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Quality:

- Content: -2