It's no masterpiece. How COULD it be, with a budget that must have been barely enough to feed the two disenfranchised ex Confederate families in Texas? One family traps animals; the other, disenfranchised by the Civil War, the McCluskeys, steals some of the animals and trespasses on the other's property.
The conflict is intensified by a Romeo/Juliet romance between a slightly reptilian McCluskey boy and the pretty blond daughter of the other family. James Badge Dale returns from the war to join the offended family, figures things out, is unable to control the violent impulses he's acquired, and it leads to bloodshed.
No masterpiece, no, but a fine piece of low-budget and deliberately paced film making, with no simple crap about evil people and good people. That is, of course the formerly rich family shouldn't steal from their neighbors. But -- should they all be slaughtered, including the helpless old matriarch, for having done so? Or even for having accidentally shot and killed a young son of their adversaries? Is it up to one man to make that judgment?
The dialog is limited and sometimes elliptical. (Thanks, Terence Malick.) I like William Forsythe, my co-star in the unforgettable, umm, what was it again? Yes, "Weeds." He doesn't get to do much but scowl. Maika Monroe is the pretty daughter, Abigail. That beastly name alone deserves a prize for originality -- no Mary Jo, no Scarlett, no Corey Sue, no Ariadne, no Kimmy, just plain old Abigail, a dusty old name for the wife of a dusty old president. James Badge Dale does a phenomenal job, really. His features always seem to be broadcasting one or another variation of "confused."
Two other things. One is that the violence is subdued and there's a whole bathtub full of it at the end. Another is that the musical score by Hanan Townshend seems to consist of one extended, ominous chord. It fits the story, in which no one seems to be having much of a good time except when Abigail and her forbidden boy friend are rooting around on the pebbly shore of a small creek.
I don't know why there are so many insults directed at it.
The conflict is intensified by a Romeo/Juliet romance between a slightly reptilian McCluskey boy and the pretty blond daughter of the other family. James Badge Dale returns from the war to join the offended family, figures things out, is unable to control the violent impulses he's acquired, and it leads to bloodshed.
No masterpiece, no, but a fine piece of low-budget and deliberately paced film making, with no simple crap about evil people and good people. That is, of course the formerly rich family shouldn't steal from their neighbors. But -- should they all be slaughtered, including the helpless old matriarch, for having done so? Or even for having accidentally shot and killed a young son of their adversaries? Is it up to one man to make that judgment?
The dialog is limited and sometimes elliptical. (Thanks, Terence Malick.) I like William Forsythe, my co-star in the unforgettable, umm, what was it again? Yes, "Weeds." He doesn't get to do much but scowl. Maika Monroe is the pretty daughter, Abigail. That beastly name alone deserves a prize for originality -- no Mary Jo, no Scarlett, no Corey Sue, no Ariadne, no Kimmy, just plain old Abigail, a dusty old name for the wife of a dusty old president. James Badge Dale does a phenomenal job, really. His features always seem to be broadcasting one or another variation of "confused."
Two other things. One is that the violence is subdued and there's a whole bathtub full of it at the end. Another is that the musical score by Hanan Townshend seems to consist of one extended, ominous chord. It fits the story, in which no one seems to be having much of a good time except when Abigail and her forbidden boy friend are rooting around on the pebbly shore of a small creek.
I don't know why there are so many insults directed at it.