CS Film Club II

Leave No Trace

It's a bit tricky to describe the qualities that make Leave No Trace so great. It isn't a movie which bowls you over so much as one that quietly nestles in your head and lingers over time. The film concerns a veteran suffering from PTSD who lives off the land and in the woods with his teen daughter and the pair's struggles to reacclimatize to normal society after an encounter with the law. Perhaps the most obviously great element here are the performances. Ben Foster probably doesn't get enough credit but he can be incredibly captivating in the right role and this is some of his best work, building a very believable portrait of someone dealing with trauma without ever overplaying his hand. Thomasin McKenzie is also great and her slow transformation is very affecting.

One can mine the film for sociological insights, particularly regarding the treatment of veterans and the policing of unhoused people (it doesn't seem like a coincidence that the pair's cited crime is illegal use of private property, for example) but Leave No Trace is best appreciated as a character study. A very rewarding one at that. I wouldn't go so far as to call Leave No Trace a modern classic but it's a gripping little watch that gave me a lot to ponder.

A-


Also, I don't have my review for it ready yet, but I totally and completely loved A Simple Plan.

Should have mine up this weekend.

Glad you liked. I tend to think of Foster doing some over the top work, (Hell or Highwater comes to mind), so it's nice to see him be so understated with this performance. The script and direction really allow for that, which helps.


My review will be up later. Good flick though.

A Simple Plan

On paper, it's easy to dismiss A Simple Plan as Sam Raimi's version of Fargo. Both are 90s movies about ordinary people who ineptly try their hand at crime and are destroyed by greed all while set in snow-covered Minnesota. That Raimi is also good friends with the Coen Brothers makes the connections all the more obvious. On paper. In practice, however, I didn't find myself thinking about Fargo very much. Where the Coens made a quirky (albeit dark) comedy, Raimi's take on greed in the Midwest is a pitch black noir. The story is simple: three men, two of which are brothers, find a crashed plane with a corpse and $4 million in cash. At first, they agree to hold onto the money for a while to wait and see if the cops come looking for it before dividing it amongst themselves. Very quickly, this simple plan falls apart, as paranoia mixes with twists of fate and things quickly turn violent.

Watching these unprepared people need to make life and death decisions and live with the consequences is gripping, but the real core of the movie is the relationship between the brothers. Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton make a fantastic duo, Paxton the well-educated married man with a good job, Thornton the simple redneck who lives alone and unemployed There are so many lawyers of drama between the two which waver from controlling to resentment to genuine love, and at times it's hard to tell which is the primary motivator. The writing also expands both men beyond potential clichés. One scene in particular where the supposedly dumber Thornton reveals something to Paxton about their father which is very powerful drama.

As one might expect, the tale spirals out of control by the end. I won't give anything away, but suffice it to say, the finale is excellent, perfectly paying off the drama between the characters and the cynicism of the story. It's a shame A Simple Plan isn't celebrated more because from top to bottom it's really fantastic.

A+


In for next round.

Alright I’ll start getting the next round lined up while the last few reviews come in. Who’s in for next round?

In

In.

The Abyss and True Lies not being on blu is baffling.

I would gladly sacrifice two Avatar movies if it means getting True Lies on blu.

There was a release date for the Panic Room 4K... then it just never came out with no explanation.  I think they're just fucking with us at this point.