Review of Silver City (1984) by Caleb M — 05 Dec 2009

Lone Star Lite.

Sayles has something to say about politics, corruption, bullying and corporate control, but the overwritten script seems to lend itself towards a mini-series than a film. All this worked so well in Lone Star, but it just feels muddled and mundane here. Not only do we have multiple characters interacting through a mystery involving age-old corruption, we even have a dead body discovered at the beginning and some daddy issues. While Lone Star's screenplay gave its characters meaningful lines that shed light on their histories and, once in a while, advanced the plot, the dialog here feels repetitive and stagy. Characters talk to themselves for no other reason than to make sure we know what just happened in the scene. With some revisions this screenplay could have been a nice little platform for some fine performances, unfortunately you can sense the showboating from Danny Huston (normally a magnet on the screen) from his first scene. Chris Cooper (can the man do no wrong?) shows a glimmer of magnificence in his far too small role (think McConaughey in Lone Star except Cooper is someone I prefer in a large role), but the rest of the cast feels like a collection of b-list stars hoping to be a part of something big. It isn't without it's moments and you've got to give Sayles credit for making a narrative with little more than a Michael Moore-ian rant against all that he sees wrong with American politics and journalism behind it.