The Quarry

I'm not an artistic genius nor am I much if the creative thinking type but, I have a few bites for the writer and director. Remove the intro scene before the title. Put it in the end before the climax. Have him rolling up to the church first and we have to figure out his connection. Add more mystery. Keep his character traits the same. Climax the film with the sheriffs suspicion and the "preacher" trying to beg forgiveness from the kid. Que up a struggle. Preacher kills the young man, one last sermon that verifies the suspicion. Ends with the sheriff and preacher in the church. Violent ending or not your call. Think that would of helped keep the slow burn more interesting. What do I know though. Still a good watch in a lazy weekend.

The extremely slow pace and occasional tricky editing is not sufficient to disguise the plot holes in this farfetched tale of a homicidal maniac masquerading as a minister, a role played profitably several times by Robert Mitchum. Still, determinedly religious folks might cook up some rationales in its favor. It recalls Stirner's remark, "Digest the Host and you are rid of it."

I would believe and render into the story, but the 1:43 hour picture is slow and its just not engaging. I did not feel impact in the final scene, because the character doesnt make you feel the weight of his guilty, the burden of killing a man. I kept straight face the whole film... and thats it. Without Michael Shannon i dont think i'd finish it.

On the plus side it's got great actors, it's bilingual and it's moody and well acted. On the down side 'The Man' behaves so oddly that he would have been investigated immediately and it hints at themes such as racism, loneliness, regret, being stuck in a small nowhere town and guilt without every fully exploring any of them. Still it's enjoyable and 6 stars is probably a bit harsh

It looked promising. It got worse. This film had so much improbability to it that I muttered "They wouldn't have done that!" more than three dozen times. The "pastor" probably uttered 20 words the whole movie. Michael Shannon..well, he's always good and I wondered how he loaned himself out to this oinker. The same ones who produced "Narco" (fantastic!) must've been on drugs when they wrote/filmed/edited this one. Don't waste your time. (Oh, the burning house in the very beginning was cool.)

Michael Shannon and Shea Whigham carry this well paced crime genre based on teh 1995 Damon Galgut novel that dealt with the effects of apartheid in South Africa. For this adaptation, it has been set in a small border town in the Lone Star State, where the racism is still alive but in this case directed at Mexican immigrants. The film directed by Scott Teems and co-written with Andrew Brotzman.

Well, it was sort of like they took one of those decent dramatic indie scripts and turned it into a PC story about white supremacy and racism, and by racism I mean the all white people are racist no matter what racism... ... but they do it through too man flashbacks and nightmares. So, there is no tension, the characters have been reduced to the usual stereotypes we see in ever movie or show remotely woke, and that is about all you have. It could have been OK, if they didn't try to make the same old BS political statement that everyone else is making.