David M. Rosenthal’s film A Single Shot,
now on Blu-ray from Well Go USA, may very well usher in a new subgenre that’s
best be described as backwoods mumble noir. Full of all kinds of aw-shucks
shoe-gazing, sudden violence, and a gradually unspooling mystery, the title
definitely seems to fit. When John Moon (Sam Rockwell), recently separated from
his wife and child, accidentally kills a young woman while poaching deer,
it kicks off a downward spiral of bloodshed and retribution that bears
comparison to movies like No Country for Old Men, A
Simple Plan, and Winter’s Bone.
A Single Shot assembles a fantastic cast,
composed of underappreciated performers, including Jeffrey Wright, Ted Levine,
Jason Isaacs, and William H. Macy. Granted that last one is widely acclaimed,
but the rest are always good, but usually overlooked.
We’re so used to seeing Rockwell play that wing-nut,
man-child slacker that he does so well, that it’s easy to overlook how good a
dramatic actor he really is. His performance here is what carries the entire movie.
Ultimately he can’t save the picture, but he does his damndest. John isn’t just
down on his luck, the world is raining a constant stream of crap directly onto
his head. He lost his family farm, can’t hold a steady job—not that there are
any jobs in this particular rural hamlet—and his wife left with his son. When
he finds a box of cash with the dead girl’s things, it makes sense that he
takes it, but you also know that he’s not going to be the only person who knows
the money is there. It isn’t just that the universe is picking on John. He’s
stubborn, way too proud, thinks he’s smarter than he is, and his hubris keeps
him bogged down.
Most of A Single Shot is an almost
fetishistic look at life in the small, broken down town. From John’s ramshackle
trailer to the boarded up businesses to the run down diner that serves as the
social hub, everything is grim, depressing, and oppressively bleak. Every
surface you touch leaves a layer of grit on your fingers, and the biggest
stumbling block of the film is that the painstakingly wrought setting takes
precedence over the plot or characters.
You get the point Rosenthal and Matthew F. Jones, who wrote
the screenplay and the novel the film is based on, are going for. The world of
A Single Shot is rough and spare. You’re 14-minutes in
before John utters a word, and aside from vomiting, he barely even blinks after
killing a stranger. But all of this distracts from the story. John is in a
middle of a mystery that he barely tries to solve. His family, his motivation,
is in danger, but they vanish part way through the narrative. After long delays,
taken up with extended shots of blue grey landscapes and ominous tones blaring
over the top, John eventually stumbles through various situations that vaguely
lead to an unsatisfying climax that is simultaneously both random and obvious.
A Single Shot is frustrating to watch
because there are pieces that have real potential. The grizzled setting is perfect
for this backwoods crime story, but there is simply too much attention focused
there. Rockwell is great, but most of other characters mutter through their
lines in barely comprehensible boondocks drawls. You’ve seen Scottish accents
subtitled, and you need them here, especially during the many, many sinister
sounding phone conversations. The sound mix is hugely out of whack on this disc,
which doesn’t help your comprehension. You go from scarcely audible
conversations to shrieking, faux-Hitchcock strings that make you eardrums
bleed.
Buried somewhere in A Single Shot—the
title is a bit of a misnomer, since John actually fires three shots—are the
makings of a great movie, but there is simply a lot that needs to be trimmed
away. If the film were 25 or 30 minutes shorter, you’d really have something.
But all the bluster and meandering and shoe-gazing never amounts to what it
should, what it could, and you walk away feeling that this film is a missed
opportunity.
The bonus features on the Blu-ray are fine—better than
some—but there’s nothing particularly impressive. A 26-minute making-of
featurette is interesting enough. It delves into the origins of the book as
well as the movie, which is a perspective that often gets lost and overlooked
in the translation. Key players also chime in on everything from production to
the color, lighting, and cinematography of A Single Shot.
Aside from one segment where the actors talk about developing the unique
accents the setting required, there’s not much here to differentiate this from
other similar extras you’ve seen before.
23-mintues of cast and crew interviews round out the bonus
material, but it’s really more of the same. The best bits have been distilled
down into the making-of documentary. You do get to see a few funny, candid
moments, like Rockwell, who is getting over a cold, snorting like crazy to
clear his nostrils, only to realize he’s being filmed. Again, not bad, but
unless you’re totally in love with A Single Shot, nothing
here stands out.
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