Despite some well-written scenes built around awkward moments, this is a hollow tragedy wholly dependent upon flashback structure as a means of keeping the audience attuned. And with a protagonist who doesn’t deserve our sympathy, or attention, or any kind of movie made about him, and he’s a lifeless fucker at that.
You understand, with an unsympathetic lad, the brutal approach with the likes of Taxi Driver (1976) or Raging Bull (1980), but these movies were made with exceptional grace and a magnetic, kinetic urgency.
This was just a derivative, bubbling affair, the extended, longing shots of troubled souls staring at one another lifted from a thousand playbooks. I was bored with every character in this film, as was I with the reliance on rote soundtrack choices I’d expect to be made on a student production.
And Kyle Chandler is in it with one of the most exotic versions of a Massachusetts accent I’ve ever heard in a movie. These folk are American actors and can’t even do a dialect properly from a state in their own country.
Rubbish.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 