STARRING: Paul Eenhoorn, Richmond Arquette, Sam Buchanan, Robert Longstreet
WRITTEN BY: Chad Hartigan
DIRECTED BY: Chad Hartigan
In a departure from typical summer fare comes a quiet little film out of the film festival circuit. Opening around the same time as Sundance faves Winters Bone and Beasts of the Southern Wild, you would think this story is following that same pattern. You would be wrong. In no way is this film on the same level as those two.
Martin Bonner (Eenhoorn) is a retired church accountant who has some kind of midlife crisis where he decides to change his career and start helping recently released convicts transition into a normal life on the outside. That’s where he meets Travis (Arquette), a man who served his sentence for killing someone while drunk driving. Travis is eager to regain a sense of normalcy on the outside, and he seems like a nice enough guy. He really wants to reconnect with his estranged daughter.
In what is probably a bizarre twist of fate, Martin Bonner really isn’t the lead. Travis is the lead. Travis is the better written character who the movie focuses around, and keeps you awake. Bonner is such a quiet and subdued character that if the movie didn’t have Travis, we’d all have died of boredom before the end. Eenhoorn’s quiet approach to the role will leave you… tired. Arquette does a bit better with Travis, but he also has more to work with.
This is probably one of the sleepiest movies I’ve seen in a long time, and having just made it through 6 episodes of Rectify, I can say that similar material has been handled better, with more compelling characters, better actors, and expert direction. Hartigan’s film will play to those few who seek out indie movies played out on small scales, but now that it is aiming for a theatrical release, it has to be said that Bonner will never break out of the ‘indie festival’ feel it has. Destined to live a life forever on either the Sundance Channel or IFC.
FINAL GRADE: D+
