Angry Bird

The story of John Brown, told with righteous fury.

- By Matt Zoller Seitz

ETHAN HAWKE’S RAGE-FILLED croak as abolitionist John Brown in The Good Lord Bird is biblically awesome. It’s not just deeper and more gravelly than his everyday speaking voice; it’s a geyser of fury that seems to erupt from his innards like demonic ectoplasm escaping the body of a possessed soul in a horror movie. When Brown launches into a sermon aimed at slavery-defending sinners, his hands grip the butts of his six-shooters, and his face and body knot up and twist like a hangman’s rope. His veins throb. Spittle flies. His eye color seems to darken. None of this is a special effect. It’s Hawke feeling Brown feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit and sounding like old Nick Nolte trying to get through an angry monologue while being fed into a wood chipper.