For the first time since he left twenty-five years earlier, school janitor Don McKay (Thomas Haden Church) returns to his hometown, where he rekindles his relationship with ex-girlfriend Sonny (Elisabeth Shue), who has been given only a month to live. Although it’s quite obvious all is not what it seems, McKay sticks around, and the weirdness keeps multiplying, eventually leading to blackmail, revelations about the past, and murder.

CRITIQUE

I don’t know what to make of this movie, nor does the movie know what to make of itself. Debuting writer/director Jake Goldberger has crafted a movie that is part Blue Velvet, part Blood Simple, and part The Trouble with Harry, with some Dickensian and southern gothic elements thrown in for good measure. What Goldberger didn’t do was synthesize these elements/influences into any sort of cohesive whole.

Don McKay shifts tone with wild abandon (although whether this is intentional is debatable), jarringly transitioning between black comedy, parody, and melodrama (sometimes in the same scene). The movie is a jumbled, unsatisfying, unmemorable mess.

Until it completely unravels in the final act, tossing out twists and revelations that are lame, obvious, and illogical, Goldberger’s script is serviceable. Any story in which the protagonist walks into a situation so odd he/she should be able to realize no good can come of it and therefore run like hell requires a certain suspension of disbelief; just for the sake of things, I was willing to give the movie the benefit of the doubt and see what unfolded. Still, though, more often than not what’s needed to make one of these stories succeed is a combination of tone and atmosphere.

The aforementioned Blue Velvet is a perfect example of this. On paper that movie undoubtedly looked like one of the biggest pieces of pretentious nonsense ever devised by the human brain, but its intangible qualities brought it together and made it work; you can talk about it forever and never really explain why it works, because it works in way that really can’t be quantified. But had Blue Velvet not worked, explaining why wouldn’t take much effort, which is the case here. The problem here can be summed up in one simple sentence: Goldberger didn’t seem to know what he was going for. (He should have gone for absurd, which is really the only way to play this material.)

Let me give you an example that is pretty indicative of the movie as a whole: Late in the movie there’s a scene involving Church, Shue, Melissa Leo (who plays Shue’s live-in nurse), and Pruitt Taylor Vince (playing an acquaintance of Leo’s character). Church (who also served as one of the movie’s executive producers) gives a deadpan performance, looking for all the world like he can’t fathom what’s going on around him.

Shue is hammy (but in a bad way [her entire performance is awful]), seemingly operating under the impression she’s shooting an episode of Desperate Housewives. Leo has interpreted the material as black comedy, while Vince (who deserves better) is going for a sitcom-style approach. Now imagine these four people delivering their lines in four completely different styles, aiming for four different goals.

They’re working at cross purposes, with the end result being that no purpose is achieved, unless of course the purpose is to annoy and/or anger an audience, in which case everyone involved deserves a gold medal, a year’s supply of Turtle Wax, and his/her face on a box of Wheaties.

The movie is  billed as a straightforward mystery-thriller, but it’s not, nor could it ever be with this script, which as I alluded to earlier tips its hand far too early (you’ll wonder why Don doesn’t get on the first bus out of town after he meets Leo’s character) and then supplies an explanation for its goings-on that is both preposterous and stupid (when Don finally reveals why he didn’t get on the first bus out of town, you’ll likely think, That’s his reason!?!).

Further, I suppose the growing mountain of surprises (which really aren’t surprising, and not just because the synopsis on the movie’s packaging spoils a major one) that is the story’s finale is meant to leave you replaying what you’ve just witnessed, albeit not in the way I was, which was to question why one character didn’t bring the whole thing crashing down by making a simple statement/asking a simple question, wonder why one character who is in cahoots with another character didn’t notice this other character had vanished for the better part of a week, and wonder how one character is able to perfectly mimic another character, this despite the fact the two sound nothing alike.

But there’s no reason to bother wondering about such things, just like there’s no reason to bother with the movie.

THE VIDEO

It’s an indie flick, shot on a miniscule budget and tight schedule, so when it comes to the visuals, you can pretty much guess what that means. The 1.78:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 25GB disc--is a little soft (maybe this is an attempt at atmosphere), and the movie was shot to look as if available light was the primary source of illumination in most scenes, which results in a somewhat flat look in middle and long shots. Close-ups don’t look too bad, but dark scenes occasionally run toward blurrily indistinct. Had the movie cost more than a nickel, this would be a rather disappointing transfer, but it’s not bad for what it is.

THE AUDIO

Same goes for the audio, which is presented as a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The front-heavy sound design only spreads to the rears for some minor ambient sounds, two or three discrete effects (I lost count), and to open up the music. When it’s not being drowned out by the music, dialogue sounds okay--no more, no less. Unless it’s called in to help fatten up the music, the low end takes a breather. No other audio options are included; English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The commentary by writer/director Jake Goldberger and producer Jim Young is another tales-of-low-budget-hurdles commentary, and like most of these go, it’s pretty interesting (which means it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than the movie itself). 

A couple deleted scenes (5 minutes, SD) don’t help make sense of the nonsense, but they do explain how Don’s able to get his job back after seemingly ditching it for a week or two.

Closing out the extras is the movie’s theatrical trailer (also presented in standard-definition).

FINAL THOUGHTS