User Reviews

It's not a movie for everyone... this one is a slow, dark, serious and sometimes very tense movie... if you are a fan of movies like Wind River, Hell or High Water etc, you can give a shot to this one too... Strong character portrayal by Sam Rockwell actor who take any of his roles very seriously and good supporting actors... Good and tense atmosphere, sometimes dramatic, sometimes tense but it's a good slow thriller-crime movie with good performances.

6/10

John Moon (Sam Rockwell) is a poacher living in poverty ridden backwoods. His father lost their family farm to the bank. His wife (Kelly Reilly) left him taking their child with her. He is struggling to accept this. One day on a hunt, he runs across a dead girl, an overturned truck, and a box full of money. He takes the money, and abandons the body. Somebody comes looking for the money and knows John took it. It becomes psychological combat as the mysterious person try to force John to divulge where the money is.

The gritty grim of overwhelming poverty is well done. Everybody looks like they just did meth. However there are too many scenes of nothing happening as John Moon walks around hunting. It adds nothing that isn't already there. They are better off trimming those scenes to lessen the 2 hours running time and pick up the pace.

At first glance it is easy to think A Single Shot is a pretty enough, moody enough, well acted retread of themes and styles from Shallow Grave, A Simple Plan, No Country For Old Men or Winter's Bone and you'd be forgiven for thinking that because there is some element of truth in it. When it comes to plot and stylistic originality you won't find it here. What you will find is an engaging and expertly, if sometimes a little too authentically, played character study disguised as a generic, backwoods, crime thriller. So, my first piece of advice to you is to throw out the plot. Don't engage, as you normally would, through what the characters are doing but more with who the characters are.

The story, such as it is, focuses around Sam Rockwell's character, John Moon. Estranged from his wife Moira, played by Kelly Reilly (Sherlock Holmes), he lives near to some conservation land, where he routinely goes hunting, despite being caught and charged for doing so on numerous occasions. He's a simple, proud man of few words just trying to put his life back together. While out hunting on this land one morning, trying to catch a deer, he accidentally shoots a woman who, he later finds out, is carrying a ton of cash with her. Despite being definitely distraught at his accidental actions, he knows that to report them would mean jail time. Instead he hides the body, takes the money and is determined to get his life, meaning his wife and child, back. However, the money, of course, is linked to a web of unsavoury characters who, one by one, try and get their hands on it. Tobacco is chewed, lines are mumbled in thick, heavy accented drawls and bodies pile up. Will John Moon come out on top or is his demise inevitable?

The press release describes the film as a tense and atmospheric game of cat and mouse and if that was the honest intention of the film then, I am sorry to say, it fails. It's too slow moving, too drenched in melancholy strings and blue, grey, damp photography. The characters aren't menacing or threatening enough and, more often than not, the tension is lost as you are straining to understand what the hell is going on as some terrific actors grumble, twitch and spit through thick beards and thicker accents. I like to believe, though, that the film is more than that. More than a generic cat and mouse thriller about a bag of money and some grubby but pleasingly quirky hillbillies. It might just be his acting and his endless watchability, but I think the film is most successful as an in-depth and tragic character study of Sam Rockwell's John Moon. Studying and delving in to, as it does, ideas of lost opportunity, loss of love, pride coming before a fall, having the strength to survive, betrayal, fear, not being able to see the wood for the trees (which is indicated in several nice visual clues) and making your bed and damn well having to lie in it. On this level the film succeeds handsomely and Rockwell, also serving as producer on the film, gives a, at first, gruff and almost monosyllabic and unsympathetic performance that grows, over the running time, into a tragic, sometimes heart wrenchingly unlucky and down trodden character that you root for to, some how, find a way out of his predicament, even though your brain can't find one and you probably know that an easy resolution will not be forthcoming. He has surrounded himself well with the cream of character actors, the sort of 2nd tier players who are a sheer delight to just recline and watch act.

William H Macy, sporting an outrageously bad toupee, a suspect moustache, a sports jacket worthy of a scuzzy car salesman from the 50s and affecting a handicap in the form of a damaged arm and limp, gives a performance that dances neatly along the line of parody and awards worthy that he, and his peers, have so perfected in their work with the Coens. He is weasley, sinister, pathetic, dangerous, unnerving and humorous all rolled into one and the film could've used a lot more of him.

The film also features great but, sadly, tiny performances from Ted Levine, Jason Isaacs and Melissa Leo who, I doubt, get much more screen time, combined, than you'd be easily able to count on two hands. The only other stand out actor worth a mention being, the always worth the price of admission, Jeffrey Wright. His performance, as a wild, reckless, drunkard friend of John Moon is fantastic and combines almost every tick, twitch and technique an actor can deploy to best portray an alcoholic red neck. The only downside to this is, as the film enters its third act, Wright shows up to deliver some important plot information but it gets buried under piles of grime, dribble, tobacco, alcoholic slurring, an indecipherable accent and a crap flecked thicket of facial hair. As superb and as delightful as the mud smeared technique is, it's this scene that almost derails the film, that is if you are still trying to figure out what is going on but, I've already told you, the plot is not important.

Much like the plot, though, the downfall in the direction is that the film feels all too familiar. From the colour palette to the score (which features the, too often used, discordant pizzicato strings) nothing here feels different from something you've seen a hundred times before and while the techniques on display are exemplary, the lack of anything new can make parts of the, already slow, film drag.

That being said it does feel authentic and atmospheric. The set dressing, the costumes, the location and the lighting also do their part to help you feel the cold, the damp, the dirt and the drink.

I love Sam Rockwell. He picks great projects and this no exception. This is not a fast paced feature but I story I really enjoyed. Maintained a great tension and foreboding throughout which I really enjoy in a film. This is a simple story with some great twists and turns. Starts out slow like a slow burn and then ramps up quickly. This story is believable and has no real holes in it. It's a story you can relate to in that it seems very plausible and believable. You feel the characters fear and tension with the situation he finds himself in. This is a slow paced thriller that is well filmed and the performances are excellent.

Although A Single Shot has a familiar moody premise, its mature execution makes it worth watching. Matthew F. Jones adapted the screenplay from his own novel and it does quite show that there's something novelistic about its structure. Our protagonist spends most of his time weaving between encounters with characters he knows well about business we see the half of. Jones has himself a rich world and we're only seeing a peek at it. It does mean that he gets wrapped up in a little too much and it feels like the first two thirds of the film feel slow and unfocused. But it's all worth it for the third act. Now, that part is new to me. Absolutely nail- biting climax, heart-breaking buildup and a great ambiguous ending. Shame they saved all the punches for the that last half an hour rather than the first ninety. Unfortunately, as characters mumble and grumble so much, I could only catch about a quarter of what people were saying until I needed subtitles and that severely affected my emotional investment and my knowledge of what was going on. I could figure out the broad strokes though. The performances all round were good, Jeffrey Wright is a tragic standout. Sam Rockwell dissolves into his role which is a good thing and a bad thing since I love it when he turns his charm on. Good solid thriller.

7/10

Many reviewers are complaining about this movie being "slow" because of the plot. What makes this movie slow is the pacing and uneven structure. The plot itself fine and actually pretty interesting - a hunter accidentally kills someone in the woods and decides not to tell anyone about it. He finds a stash of money with the body and uses it to better his Son. That's a good story. Unfortunately, it's the poor direction, editing and writing of this movie that really destroy what is a pretty good premise.

Honestly (the more I think about it), with the exception of an interesting story (at least at the beginning) and a great performance by Rockwell, this film is a complete mess. There are numerous scenes that don't fit or just don't make sense. Though Rockwell is fantastic, many of his character's actions are completely idiotic. I blame a poor script filled with convenient characters that serve as nothing more than stereotypical plot devises. Neo-noir films can break rules and be implausible, but that's because they usually have a pacing that builds to a great climax, making you forgot about all the plot holes and illogical characters.

Rockwell's character is the only person in the movie with any depth. Which is a testament to Rockwell, because the writer does not do anything to help us relate to this guy. I guess, to a degree, that might be the point - this unlucky chap could be any of us. But at a certain point I wanted more focus on the psychological weight of his murder, a Tell Tale Heart kind of thing, and less No Country For Old Men 2.

I didn't hate this movie. It does create a nice atmosphere, but there's too much wrong with it to really enjoy it for more than 10 minutes at a time at any point. Thank goodness for Rockwell, or it would have been completely unwatchable.

Check out Cold In July or Blue Ruin - those films show you how to do neo-noir thrillers right.

David M. Rosenthal's A Single Shot joins the ranks of some superior 2013 thrillers, the uniting factor being their complete grasp of a sense of place and time and their ability to unconditionally exploit their setting for the benefit of the story and characters. Mud, The Frozen Ground, Scenic Route and now this poetic backwoods chiller all place a compelling central character in a potentially life threatening ordeal and surrounds them with superior supporting players and executes their motives and actions with fluidity and respect. This year has so far seen a resurgence in this type of yarn – a stripped down, character based story that extracts its involving tenseness through simple actions, not bombast and explosions.

For A Single Shot, Matthew F. Jones adapts his own novel which can often be the kiss of death for any film in such a situation and though I have not personally read his book, it's clear he's handled his material with grace and dignity. The dialogue is natural and not overstuffed and most importantly doesn't play out like a work of literary fiction but a thoroughly cinematic effort.

Also an interesting choice is when some of these characters deliver their lines; the employ of a deep southern drawl (often accompanied by drunken slurring) can render certain words incomprehensible. While this certainly adds a layer of realism to the proceedings it does take the risk of making the effort as whole indecipherable and confusing. How A Single Shot avoids this pitfall is with its grasp on these scenes and the sequences that precede and follow them. We are at least somewhat aware of their motivations and how they fit into place so the fact we miss a word here and their holds little bearing on the greater arcs at play.

Of these threads, at the center is always Sam Rockwell's John Moon, a poacher living off the land while trying desperately to get enough of his life together to reconcile with his estranged wife and their young son. It's on a typical hunt on an equally typical day that his fortunes both plummet and inflate with, yes, a single shot. Set in motion is a series of poor choices and collisions with dangerous, scheming men who have no love lost for whoever is responsible for their reversal of fortunes.

Lost in a hillbilly beard, mangy hair and backwater drawl Rockwell delivers what is absolutely one of his best performances and considering his already auspicious resume, it isn't a claim I lay lightly. This is a living, breathing individual, not an A-lister traipsing around in facial hair and one whose choices or lack thereof have dire consequences. This is an inherently flawed and broken man, but one we want to see rise above the hell he has created for himself.

The remainder of the thesps who round out the cast also never miss a beat and all serve to elevate Rockwell who in turn bolsters them. On the side of the wicked we get two outstanding turns by the mostly overlooked Jason Isaacs and up and comer Joe Anderson. They play two former cell mates who are out to find the man responsible for the theft of their drug money and whether alone or together they emanate an innate aura of malice.

Anderson (who some may have seen on the unfortunately short lived found footage television series The River) shares and early scene with Rockwell after he makes an ill advised venture to his ex's home only to find him making friendly with the babysitter. The tense scenes that follow don't have anything surface level that would indicate bad things to come, but the subversive interplay between them is worth the price of admission alone.

Jason Isaacs on the other hand has been delivering deliciously evil villains over the course of his career, the most exposed of which would certainly be his perfectly realized interpretation of slimy Harry Potter antagonist Luscious Malfoy. Though often cast in roles such as that, here he crafts a different vein of monster, lost in a mane of hair and a weathered face. He isn't on screen for long as it turns out but he makes us remember ever scene and his service to the absolutely gripping climax is as invaluable as they come. The final sequences' stakes, the pacing and the performances culminate into some of the most white knuckle filmmaking of the year.

Inhabiting the grey area in terms of scrupulous morals (in addition to John Moon of course) is Jeffrey Wright as a perpetually drunk old friend of Moon's, William H. Macy as a "simple small town lawyer." Then we are treated to great female leads in the form of Kelly Reilly (who is proving to be a name to watch after the fantastic turn in last year's Flight) and Ophelia Lovibond as the daughter of a family friend. I found Wright in particular to be dynamite, certainly adhering to the aforementioned slurring hillbilly style of line delivery. His fate may be a tad predictable and overblown but everything preceding it reminds us why he still has a career.

If A Single Shot stumbles anywhere it would be in its final scenes which are so on the nose it could be considered out of focus. There is nothing subtle about its imagery and metaphors but with such immensely strong work from everyone in front of and behind the camera, it's easy to forgive, though tough to overlook entirely. Embraced by the bleak mountain terrain, perforated my instances of brutal violence and anchored unequivocally by Rockwell, A Single Shot is well worth a look if for nothing than the fact it serves its story and characters with a rare level of reverence and takes them on a journey that is equal parts satisfying and devastating.

Couldn't understand a thing they were saying. For such good actors the southern accents and chewing tobacco didn't help to make any talking clear. Not worth watching. I am sorry I did.

I've been a fan of Sam Rockwell (and the many roles in his career), but this movie just goes on way too long. He plays his role very well, but this movie just drags on. Nothing but lowlife criminal element ne'er-do-wells that never could, or would. Wasted my time, expected better, got less. Oh well.

This is an exquisitely dark, rural, all-American series noir. Plot line and moral being: a good man goes bad, because that's the way things can be, the way things are. Nature -- human or otherwise, isn't kind. Mistakes happen. And you often pay for them in the wilderness of this world we live in alone and altogether. Chance has its way of crushing you, burying you alive. Watch out. Plus, aside from a potent story line, the acting is downright first rate. Not a single one of the actors are off key. I don't know who did the casting for "A Single Shot", but they deserve an award for it. Also exquisite in this film is the ending -- one of the most original examples of "open ended" I've ever seen in a film. You've got to be in a dark, worried mood to like this film; its darkness is relentless. "A Single Shot" is not for everyone; in no way is it "G" or "GP". But for thoughtful adults it is very well worth the watching.

One of the year's strangest-almost disappointing films, "A Single Shot" is only respectable because Sam Rockwell is doing a very nice work following an average script that on better hands would result in a gripping project. It's not much of a script problem but a matter of choices made that turned this film into something almost unbearable and unintelligible. The premise is good enough to make you interested but there's mistakes on the way, whether poor editorial choices, terrible sound and a messy, uninvolved and unexplainable situations.

Sam plays a lonely man who believes has an answer to all of his marital problems after finding a great amount of money in the woods where he was hunting. But there's a dead girl's body involved, people who want to find her and the money and as usual it's the dangerous kind of people. Now this hunted hunter will have to find ways of solving the upcoming obstacles on his way before it gets too late.

"A Single Shot" is the kind of movie that depends on who's behind the material and how it's going to developed. It could be everything but ordinary - which sadly is. It has a sort of Coen brothers kind of setting and if created or made by them it would an instant classic, clever and powerfully well-acted. But here while trying to be artistic constructing a character development (limited to the main character of course), the screenplay and the director forced a slow pace (at first very good but then it got annoying), kept confusing and sounded awfully. The last one though. If only we could hear the actors speaking, or at least understand what they're saying. Rockwell's best friend, played by Jeffrey Wright, is an important piece of the story but he's constantly drunk, forcing an already hard dialect and that's it. What's he saying with all those mumbled words? Not to mention that some connections are strangely made and all of sudden Sam receives threats after threats (that's when the movie takes of for good) by the psychotic character played by Jason Isaacs.

It's worth seeing though. It keeps your interest (but not fully), the director knows how to create a great sense of menace and fear, and it's easy to relate with the leading man and his problems that only get bigger and bigger, just wanting to make things simple. Rockwell is a knockout here, in the great things and in the small ones too. Pay attention to his character composition, how he communicates plenty with saying much and at each scene is injured in some way. It's nuanced performance just as much as of William H. Macy as the crippled lawyer (too bad he's in it for brief scenes) and the frightening Joe Anderson (the first confrontation between him and Sam is very good). Everyone else in here doesn't convince all that much.

Not easy enough to be considered an entertainment, nor patient and important to be art. Minor but good. 6/10

While the setting and action in this movie are seemingly brutally naturalistic, the execution is confusing and unsubstantial. The story ends up being too mundane and dull to have some symbolic meaning, yet too figurative and inexplicable to be interestingly realistic. Visually the movie is dark, though it take place outdoors much of the time, and seems filled with meaningless shots. The dialogue is hard to understand, though the characters are too unperceptive to say anything worth listening to anyway. The protagonist is constantly falling asleep, dreaming, and being startled awake. He seems to exist in a state of stupor, his actions exhibiting no intelligence. He stumbles through the events of the movie without learning anything or changing at all, though I suppose there is supposed to be some thread of redemption. I guess this movie could be a representation of real life, dumb and pointless, but that's not much of a story.

5/11/18. A really slow movie with an unsatisfying ending. If you like into the woods type movies, sleazy stalkers and stupid people in general, then this one's for you.

Man, I love Sam Rockwell so I wanted to like this and give it a chance. It was almost decent, the story coulda been great just the director didn't do enough and the ending was bogus man. Terrible actually lol. Why and how is all I can say smh.

Not a total waste of two hours but unfortunately like so many other movies, it's spoiled by a lazy ending!

BRIEF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Detail and colours are kind of muted, but this was likely the intent of the film makers. It does lend itself to the moody and atmospheric photography. Just DON'T expect a razor-sharp print. The Audio, although spare, is good and effective.

Now, to the film... This really isn't exactly my kind of movie, but it is made very well, the photography of the scenery is beautiful and moody, and the acting is very good all around. The mood is relentless and oppressive, but not overly done where they are pounding you over the head with it. But, make no mistake... This is DEFINITELY woven from the threads of Film Noir. Not so much in the look or style (which is why I personally really like the Classic Genre and modern films that copy that style) but in the mood and tone where you REALLY feel the inevitability of it all closing in as the film progresses. If it had been handled with any more of a nasty or violent edge, I would probably not have liked it. But, fortunately the film makers wisely kept that aspect of it in check and only used it sparingly when it most effectively added to the overall theme and tone of the movie.

I've always liked Sam Rockwell, and his performance is excellent. He perfectly captures the essence of the type of character he is playing, which is a character that is somewhat out of the norm for him, but he does it well. William H. Macy is kind of underused for the quality of actor that he is, but what he does is very good.

The reason why I said at the beginning of this review that this isn't really my kind of film, is because I generally go for more of a stylish approach, where the characters are far more intriguing and there's maybe a bit more cleverness to the story in order to drive this kind of film. But, that is just my personal preference. For example, I REALLY liked Sam Raimi's 'A SIMPLE PLAN' which is somewhat similar to this story, but the tone and the characters are far, FAR more interesting. This film is more of a stripped down, human interest study of the main character. And, thankfully, since almost the full weight of the film falls on Rockwell, he carries it off with just the right tone where he clearly is a flawed character whom you cannot exactly root for enthusiastically, but at the same time, he gives his character JUST the right touch of decency and humanity in his dealings with others and in his sparse dialog, that you come away feeling some sympathy for him. If it wasn't for that ONE vital element, I feel that for me anyway, the film would have been just too cold and lifeless.

So, I would say that as long as you don't mind a film that is not terribly stylish in tone or characters, and IF you can appreciate a REALLY simple, pared down story, but one that DOES indeed have a strong, oppressive suspense to it, then you might enjoy this movie to some degree. Of course, if you like Sam Rockwell, that would probably help a lot...

This is one of those cases where although I do indeed appreciate the quality of the film and felt that it was done very well and had no serious flaws in it, it is just not really in the style that I would personally prefer. BUT... since it IS a quality film, I feel that although I would probably give it more of a '6' for me personally, for others who perhaps like this particular type of film more so than I do, a rating of '7' would probably be more objectively in line with the quality of the movie.

I hope that this helps...

This is a serious movie for serious viewers. Sam Rockwell gives a convincing performance as John Moon, a West Virginia cracker who stumbles into bad luck from the opening seen. All of the characters bring to life what it's probably like to live in a rural, poor area in flyover country. The accents of the characters are often thick, which can make it difficult to understand some of the dialog, but the plot nonetheless comes through clearly. Rockwell's character progresses from being a dumb cracker to someone you care about, as the tension builds towards a final resolution of his accidental and potentially deadly predicament. The acting and direction are first rate. The cinematography fits the story; the musical score does likewise. The story is dark, in a Jack London sort of way. You won't be inspired, but you might be brought closer in touch with the human condition.