Despite what the film's title might lead one to believe, there aren't any saints to be found here, but rather morally conflicted characters whose dreams for domestic peace always lead to a violence born from plans that were intended to make them come true. When southern sweethearts Ruth and Bob (Rooney Mara & Casey Affleck) end up trapped in an abandoned shack and engaged in a shootout with Dixie cops following a botched robbery, Bob takes the blame for wounding the officer (Ben Foster) that was actually shot by his pregnant wife. With her being acquitted and him being found guilty, we jump about 6 years later when Ruth is told (by the officer she shot) that her husband and little girl's father has escaped from jail to finally begin their life as a family. However, not only will Bob have to outsmart the law and lay low to even contact Ruth, he'll also have to deal with a patriotic protector (Keith Carradine) warning him to stay away from her and the gang of trigger-happy rednecks whose money he robbed. Not to mention the formerly-wounded officer who has taken a liking to Ruth and aspires to fill the masculine void in her life; the influence of which, the audience can't help but think, might be better on the little girl in the long term than that of a jailbird on the run. But girls do love that bad boy...
Beautiful to look at and filled with engaging sequences fueled by solid performances from a terrific ensemble cast, Ain't Them Bodies Saints is welcome addition to this new wave of crime pictures that seem more concerned with the circumstances and motivation of the perpetrators than the crime itself (Killing Them Softly, The Drop, The Place Beyond the Pines come to mind). Furthermore, the fact that it takes place in the South adds a poetic touch to the sudden brutality and romantic futility displayed on screen, not too mention all the beautiful settings. In fact, the smooth, over-lapping editing, quick narrative jumps and sporadic use of voice-overs (mainly when reading lovers' correspondences) somewhat recalls Terrence Malick before he went all esoteric on us (which I'm not saying is necessarily a bad thing). I kept thinking that this felt like his first film Badlands if Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek were apart during the whole movie. Standing out on many cinematic fronts, Saints manages to imbue traces of hope in what is ultimately a tragic southern tale of love gone wrong.
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