Tonight:
5°c
Charlotte O'Sullivan's rating
Better with time
By
Charlotte O'Sullivan
22 May 2008
Jeff Nichols’s sultry Southern yarn takes a while to get going. Three Arkansas brothers become embroiled in a war with their four half-brothers. A slide guitar sets the mood; cutesy one-liners come thick and slow. Yet the script gets more subtle as it progresses and the acting is fantastic.
Michael Shannon, the eldest of the brothers (he’s called Son, the other two, amusingly, are Boy and Kid) carries himself with the grim authority of a first-born who’s been put in charge of siblings while still a baby himself. Natalie Canderday — as the brothers’ hateful mother — is just right, too. Slight but sly, Shotgun Stories is a cross between a John Wayne western and Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. Enjoy.
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