A SINGLE SHOT (David M. Rosenthal). 116 minutes. Opens Friday (September 20). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NNN
Watching Sam Rockwell work is always a pleasure. His live-wire presence galvanizes project after project – most recently Seven Psychopaths and The Way, Way Back. But when he decides to play against type, to turn down his natural charisma and disappear into a role… well, that’s even better.
Rockwell does exactly this in A Single Shot as John Moon, a shortsighted, trouble-prone farmhand and poacher with a busted marriage and an antiquated sense of pride. Hunting deer in the woods, Moon accidentally kills a young woman and discovers she was hiding a large box of cash. He takes it and hides the body, but of course she didn’t come alone.
Things do not go better from there, as a combination of repressed guilt and poor decision-making (clearly, our hero has never stumbled across A Simple Plan on cable) leads John into a series of very bad places, all of which are presented by director David M. Rosenthal as a heavy-handed cautionary tale about owning up to your mistakes and never taking things that clearly belong to someone else.
Rosenthal also encourages his supporting cast to try way too hard – William H. Macy pours on the Fargo skeeze as a shifty lawyer, Jason Isaacs and Joe Anderson chew scenery as pop-eyed villains, and Jeffrey Wright shuffles around like a zombie as John’s perpetually drunken friend.
But Rockwell’s so good at burrowing into his character’s torment, it’s worth watching A Single Shot for him alone.
