Review of Shotgun Stories (2007) by Ankur D — 25 Jun 2012

Shotgun Stories tells the sporadic tale of three brothers who try to live out their combustive lives in a rural town in Arkansas. Jeff Nichols, the director and writer, uses subtleties and tangible dialogue to build up the story, characters, and conflicts these men have, personal and relative conflicts. Adam Stone performs his job as a cinematographer successfully to capture the sweet melancholy of the rural town, capturing moments of pure bliss including the farmlands, degrading train-yards, and sunsets to help Nichols transcend the old and familiar story to new unseen heights.

Son, Kid and Boy wonderfully played by, Michael Shannon, Barlow Jacobs, and Douglas Linnon, are faced with the news of their father passing. Not moved by the drastic news they decided to visit the funeral and give their final words about their feeling of their father. Son spits on the coffin where his new family are angered by their behaviour and decide to start a blood war between each of them.

Nichols sets up the story in such a way that upon our first viewing that we may think we know how this story ends up, but as the story unfolds we see the movie take on a new direction. Nichols tries to uses subtleties to reveal key plot points and tell us more about these characters. For example Son's gambling problem is hidden by Son himself as a "system" that he is trying to crack. Set up as a revenge-tragedy Nichol rather show us the reaction of the blood war between the two families rather than any real bloodshed. Using a soothing score by the band Lucero and Pyramid and beautiful cinematography by Adam Stone, Shotgun Stories comes off as a story about the effects of revenge and justice rather than a movie about it. Nichols shows us that these characters want to escape their lives but old feuds and personal demons stop them from moving anywhere.

8.5/10.