Review: The Quarry

A preacher (Bruno Bichir) gets a little too inquisitive of the stranger (Shea Whigham) he has just picked up and pays for it fatally. After burying the holy man’s body in the title quarry, Whigham decides to travel on to the small Texas town the preacher was heading to and poses as him. He preaches to the local townsfolk in a rather down-to-earth but no-nonsense manner that somehow they actually respond favourably to. This despite most of them being non-English speaking immigrants who likely don’t understand many of the words (and he doesn’t speak Spanish). When the dead body is uncovered, cluey but racist local lawman (Michael Shannon) suspects a local crim and his brother of the crime. Will this phony man of God get away with not just the ruse, but murder too?

 

Two terrific performances can’t do much to liven up this slow, dreadfully familiar 2020 crime-noir/western from director Scott Teems (who went on to script “Halloween Kills”) and his co-writer Andrew Brotzman (who comes from a background in short films). It’s one of those films where to be charitable you might call it a bit ‘small’, and I’m just not sure what the actors saw in the material. Do we really need yet another film about a violent man escaping his past and posing as a preacher? I feel like we’ve been there, done that quite a bit.

 

Perhaps for Whigham he just wanted a lead role, and he is indeed very good here. He broods and quietly simmers, as he nervously waits for his violent deeds to catch up with him. Some might find him a bit bland or passive in the part, I think he’s just subtle. On the other end of the spectrum is the more showy and loud Michael Shannon. Shannon is immediately excellent as the nosey lawman who seems to know everything about everyone except Whigham…for now at least. You get the sense that this is a guy who doesn’t like the unknown in his town. Shannon’s a perfect actor for this part, keeping you just as much on edge as he does Whigham’s character. The rest of the film however, never really draws you in, which lessens the tension between the central characters a bit. The other characters and just don’t pop, they’re well-acted but all of them pretty forgettable. As is the predictable and clichéd story, repurposed to Texas from post-Apartheid South Africa in the original novel by Damon Galgut. To be honest, I actually ended up being pretty pissed off with it for not really going anywhere new or compelling. It’s just sorta there.

 

I needed more than a couple of good actors delivering good performances to keep me interested here. Unfortunately this dour film isn’t worthy of its stars, nor one’s precious time. What did Whigham and Shannon see in this?

 

Rating: C

 

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