Review of Shotgun Stories (2007) by Alex M — 03 Aug 2010

This film is definitely an independent director's first film - and a damn good one at that.

Jeff Nichols does a good job with showing us a world that we often like to overlook or to exaggerate. The Caucasian wastelands of the South and the Midwest are not exactly gripping and popular locals but this movie explores an interesting plot of two competing blood lines from the same father. Half brothers killing each other. Irresistible.

The two things I will say that work against this movie is the really really jumbled script. The order of the scenes and the series of events don't really gel with the story and someone could have come in and organized things a little bit better, developed some of the characters a bit better, give others a little bit less of a back story, etc.

The other thing is the terrible sound mixing. It almost ruined the movie.

Back to the good stuff - Michael Shannon. He's always been a pretty underrated actor and in this film he finally gets to strut his stuff. He literally struts in the movie. At times you get a little tired of the bored dialog that plagues that entire culture and as I said earlier, a bit of that could have been cut out, but for the most part there is enough action to get you from scene to scene.