Sean Penn is perhaps my favorite living male actor. I see films merely because he is in them. Milk, the interesting real life story of the first openly gay public official in the United States proved that even the most talented actor cannot portray every character.  Despite all of his amazing talents, the task of playing a gay man lies beyond Penn’s skills. This is crystal clear at the end of film when we see a snipped of the real Harvey Milk for a mere 30 seconds: Here it becomes painfully apparent that Penn comes no where close to capturing the real Harvey Milk. Penn’s failure is a stark reminder that we all may misjudge the range of our abilities. While the film does a good job in telling the basic facts about the life of Milk, it does not illuminate at all the motive that led, Dan White, a fellow member of the city council kill Milk and the Major Moscone. The ending credits refer to a documentary called the “Life and Times of Harvey Milk.”

I am curious to see whether it sheds more light on White’s motive as well as Milk’s important contribution to American Democracy.