Two Men in Town

William returns to the town of his youth. He was a gang member and hoodlum who was arrested and imprisoned for the murder of the now sheriffs partner. He was imprisoned and after serving his time, wants to rebuild his life and connect with his new Islamic faith. This would be okay if only the sheriff or his former gang leader would let him forget his previous life. So he is destined to repeat it and as they are not prepared to forgive him, it will lead to inevitable circumstances.

A film like this comes along in ever frequent moments. It is produced in order for a very talented international director to break into English dominated Hollywood. It is also produced for said director to work with a great cast and crew, all versed in the system he is new too. Also it is produced as an alternative for an audience hungry for character pieces to get what they desire but funded by a studio who have no doubt worked a deal into it. The problem here is not that any of these are at fault. Far from it, Rachid Bouchareb has crafted a beautiful looking and even toned film. The cast which feature Oscar winners and nominees, are all very good and give conviction to apparent meaty roles. The crew have worked hard on making the film solid and crafted with much poise.

What we get is a film that is empty. The film is a character driven piece that would not satisfy those hungry for something away from robots or dinosaurs. It is empty in the sense that you do not care about that which is happening. You see the piece and the players as little more than bricks that are slotted into place but that serve very little purpose. I left it, not caring about anything that had happened or not caring about anyone. This is not to say that the actors arent worth the time, Brenda Blethyn in particular is very good. It is that the film feels as if you are heading down a street so familiar as too be less interesting than tuning the car radio. It suffers from that which the blockbuster films do. They have empty people who often go in the same direction and their arch is fulfilled almost as soon as the credits role for the start. We know where we are going and we are so bored with it that we reject it and start looking at the compositions. This creates a sad audience choice, which set up the film as a piece more beautiful looking then of substance or if anything else, less rewarding to listen than watch. Sad really....