Hot Picks
|
|
|
Mysterious Circumstance: The Death of Meriwether Lewis
USA 2022
produced by Amye Gousset, Robbie Fisher, Morgan Cutturini, P.J. Leonard, John Schneider (executive), Alicia Allain (executive), Michael Mosca (executive), Clark Richey (executive) for Six Shooter Studios, Fisher Productions, Starling Road Productions, Maven Entertainment
directed by Clark Richey
starring John Schneider, Evan Williams, Sonny Marinelli, Amye Gousset, Billy Slaughter, Lance E. Nichols, Marcus Dupree, Rider Mayo, Josh Whites, Jamie Fair, Keandre Wicks, Chad McMahan, Cotton Yancey, Clark Richey
written by Clark Richey, music by Dalton Grant, song by Evanescence
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
In his time, Meriwether Lewis (Evan Williams) was a famed explorer of
the West, his main claim to fame being leading the Lewis and Clark
Expedition that explored the territory of the Louisiana Purchase from 1804
to 1806. He was also a dear friend of President Thomas Jefferson. And yet
inm 1809 he died from gunshot wounds in a remote inn 70 miles off
Nashville called Grinder's Stand, with the death initially being ruled a
suicide. In 1811, ornothologist Alexander Wilson (Billy Slaughter), who
claims to be an old friend of Lewis as well as the president, stops by
Grinder's Stand to interview the inkeepers. Now Robert Grinder immediately
takes himself out of the story by claiming he wasn't even present that
day, his wife Priscilla (Amye Gousset) more or less retells the official
story, that Lewis arrived at the inn in a very confused, depressed state,
with his escort Neely (John Schneider) nowhere to be seen. After he sent
his entourage (Lance E. Nichols, Marcus Dupree) to sleep in the shed, he
had a bit too much to drink at dinner, retired to his room, and shot
himself - twice. When inquiring some details though, Wilson notices slight
irregularities in Priscilla's story, and her husband starts to act
noticeably more hostile the longer the conversation goes, so in his head,
Wilson makes up his own theories of what could have happened: It might
have been a simple robbery, or a crime out of jealousy, or evensomething
politically motivated. But with Priscilla as the only witness, he'll never
know which of the stories he has made up is closes to the truth ... Now
with its repeated retelling of a story with slight and not so slight
differences, this movie of course is more than a bit reminiscent of Akira
Kurosawa's Rashomon (which has
actually been remade as a western, The Outrage, by Martin Ritt in
1964), but to this film's credit the similarities to Kurosawa's
masterpiece are only very superficial, with the true story nature of this
movie removing it even further from the Japanese film. And taken on its
own terms, this is actually a pretty good old West mystery which might
happen on a pretty small scale, but the scale makes the story very
intimate, which in turn increases its impact. And a direction making the
most of its sets and locations as well as a grounded ensemble cast lending
believability to their roles make this a very cool film.
|
|
|