The Slaughter Rule
by Andrew J. Smith, Alex Smith (II)
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Clea DuVall, David Cale, David Morse, Eddie Spears, Ryan GoslingDirector: Alex Smith (II), Andrew J. Smith
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 116 minutes
Release Date: 2003-02-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: Sundance Channel Home Entertainment
Studio: Sundance Channel Home Entertainment
VHS Movie Reviews of The Slaughter Rule
Movie Review: Taunted For Two Months Before I Watched It
Summary: 3 Stars
When I first got my digital cable in July of 2007, this movie always seem to pop up every damn day on the Sundance channel. This movie stayed on television for two months straight, taunting me to watch it.I've liked Ryan Gosling since I saw him in Murder By Numbers and The Notebook, but I never wanted to watch this film because I'm just not into football. But after one late night in October, I finally decided to give this movie a chance.
I can't lie to you; I was lost as hell. I didn't know where the film was going or where it wanted to go. And this film had REAL Indians in it, so that was what kept me interested. So I kept watching....and kept watching....and kept watching. By the end, I was like, WTF was that?! It seemed stupid to me. I never wanted to watch it again!
Then I realized I had to watch it again for two reasons:
1. I didn't see it from the beginning and
2. I was lying down when I was watching it, therefore I wasn't totally focused.
Damn. So I watched it later in the day because I knew it would be back on. Every time I thought I knew what would happen, something else happened. For me, this film went in too many damn directions and the ending didn't sit well with me. It didn't make much sense to me and I still came to the conclusion that I didn't want to see it again. But after watching it several times, I started to get what the film was trying to say. To this day, I still don't totally get what was supposed to be achieved with David Morse's gay/accused child molesting ways, or Tracey Two Dogs getting injured, or Roy coming to terms with whatever the hell he was supposed to come to terms with. Seems everyone had issues in this movie.
The storyline was all messed up for me, but its the actors who give this the 3/5 stars I've chosen.
David Morse for his creepy performance as a coach who is obsessed with his star player.
Ryan Gosling for his performance of a confused teenager trying to deal with the death of his father, his crazy mother, and whether or not he should get close to a coach with a horrific past.
Eddie Spears for his performance as the kid who gets beaten by his stepfather, and backs his best friend in any decision.
Everyone else seems to be a blur with no purpose but to make an already jacked up story more confusing than when it first started.
What was "The Slaughter Rule" anyway?
Summary of The Slaughter Rule
The Slaughter Rule is a rich, intense portrait of a young football player facing losses, on the field and off. Roy Chutney (Gosling) is a defeated football hero whose only chance of saving his dignity is "the slaughter rule", a forced end to the game before the point of humiliation. Roy is lost in a world without rules, until renegade coach (Morse) and a new romance give him the strength for one last play. This lush cinematic journey, the first feature film from writers / directors Andrew and Alex Smith, debuted at he 2002 Sundance Film Festival.While it may sound like some brutal warrior metaphor for life, this story of a high school boy facing up to the complexities of the adult world is a tender drama about troubled souls. Amiable, good-natured Roy (Ryan Gosling) keeps life at arm's length until renegade coach Gid (a paternal David Morse, who nurses his own emotional wounds) scouts him for a rural six-man football league--a rough, unforgiving game as much rugby as traditional gridiron action--and brings out his hibernating alpha-wolf. Roy also gets lessons in love from "older woman" Clea Duvall, but this is not your usual coming-of-age film. Set on the forever plain and under the magnificent sky of the Montana high desert, and photographed with the crispness of a winter morning, The Slaughter Rule offers an unsentimental portrait of a world in which winning is secondary to simply surviving till the end of the game. --Sean Axmaker
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