The Slaughter Rule

Rank

Middle 40-60% of all time (see others with this rank)

Festival Year

2002 (click here to see all competition films from this year)

Category

Dramatic Competition

Cast

Ryan Gosling, David Morse, Clea Duvall, Kelly Lynch, David Cale, Eddie Spears

Non-Cast Credits

Alex Smith, Andrew Smith, Gavin O'Connor, Jerry McFadden, Michael Robinson, Greg O'Connor, Eric Edwards, Brent White, Jay Farrar, John Johnson

Description

Not in recent years has the transition from boy to man been explored with more grace, poetry, and beauty that in The Slaughter Rule, a debut feature from twin filmmakers Andrew and Alex Smith. But that's where the reference to things gentle ends, for it is the juxtaposition and antithesis of the locationthe rugged small town in Montana and the hard-packed earth of the brutal six-man football gamesfrom which this film derives its intensity. From the first Cinemascope panning shot, you can see these are filmmakers who know what they are doing.

Roy (Ryan Gosling) gets cut from his high school football team just days after his estranged father dies. For him, football is more than proving ground. It is a promised escape from his lonely rural existence and salvation from the paralyzing passivity that dominates his life. Enter Gideon (David Morse), a loner living on the roughneck fringe who is looking for "gamers"kids who scrap hardto play on his six-man football squad. Roy joins the Renegades, and he and Gideon enter into tenuous friendship that pushes the limits of male bonding.

The perfection of this film is in the performances. Who better than Morse to play Gideonrepression bubbling under a hard exterior, rage just under the skin? Gosling is testosterone-revved teenager on moment, tender young man the next. He's a mass of male contradictions, especially to Skyla (Clea Duvall), a bartender in a local honky-tonk who catches Roy's eye. With its poignant storytelling, stunning cinematography, and intrinsic sense of place, the Slaughter Rule is and extraordinary first film.

Reviewer

John Cooper (see other films reviewed by the same reviewer)

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