This movie has the right style but it's lacking the right sort of story to go along with it.
On the one hand this really is a great movie but on the other, it at the very same time is an extremely average one as well. That probably sounds a bit weird and cryptic, so let me elaborate. I actually for most part was really loving the movie because it at all times felt like it was building up toward something great and interesting. The main characters are greatly written and intriguing ones. It's the sort of movie in which most of the interesting stuff isn't happening in its main story but it's in the little details and all of its underlying plot lines. However, the thing this movie didn't handle too well was the way how it resolved things. Like I said, the movie has a great build up but is there ever a decent enough payoff as well? In my opinion that was really missing from this movie. It relies too much on the viewer's ability to piece everything together for themselves. This movie really doesn't answer all of its questions and how is everything resolved- and how are its characters supposed to be redeemed exactly by the end of this movie? Too many questions and not enough answers. The build up to it all is wonderful but the eventual end result still feels a bit too simplistic and disappointing to be honest, making this movie ultimately nothing more but an average one to watch.
It basically is a typical small town crime story, in which everyone is a suspect and everyone has some sort of secret or past they are trying to hide or run away from. It also has a very typical atmosphere and style to it, which is making this movie almost a more art-house type of movie and I mean that in a positive way. The atmosphere of the movie keeps things perfectly tense and mysterious, in the sense that you never really know what is coming next.We don't often get to see Peter Stormare playing lead roles in movies but he does so in this one. And yes, he's also definitely great in it. Granted that that also had a lot to do with the writing and his character but it of course also remains true that the simply played his role really well.
Visually and technically it's definitely a better movie than it is story-wise. This means that by far Ed Gass-Donnelly is a better director than he is a writer. I'm also definitely interested in seeing more movies like this, done by Ed Gass-Donnelly, as long as it's written by someone else or has some additional writers involved, besides Gass-Donnelly.
An only half successful movie.
6/10
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