Movies You May Have Missed Update: Shotgun Stories

For a movie I really liked, I’ve sure treated Jeff Nichols’ debut feature Shotgun Stories cheaply. First I never wrote a full review of it. Then on Tuesday, I missed the fact that it hit DVD this week. Thanks to the infinitely more thorough Evan Derrick of MovieZeal, I’m here to mend my ways. It’s a pretty ridiculous oversight since movies like this are the whole reason I started this column in the first place. Ah well, the good news is it gets its own shout out without having to compete with My Blueberry Nights (did you see there how I just couldn’t resist one more plug for the Wong Kar-Wai film though?).

I knew nothing about this one going in other than it had a good critical reputation (it’s got a healthy 76 Metacritic rating even now). What I got was a quietly devastating little number about two families in Little Rock, Arkansas sharing the same father but torn apart by bitterness and rivalry.

The first family is essentially a train wreck made up of three brothers. They were abandoned and left to poverty by their alcoholic father who then found God, cleaned up his act and started a new family with a new wife and four new sons.

On the occasion of their father’s funeral, simmering resentments flare up, a slow-burning fuse is lit and the movie threatens to explode into tragedy.

It all sounds very melodramatic, heavy handed and depressing, but it’s really none of those things. The drama is fairly subtle and there’s a very dry, laconic humor that keeps the movie from getting bogged down.

Stoic Michael Shannon (Bug and a memorable part in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead: “Do you mind if I call you Chico?”) is terrific as the older brother.

Filed under: Miscellaneous

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