The Quarry: Film Review

Cast: Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Bobby Soto
Director: Scott Teems

Based on Damon Galgut's story, The Quarry is in no hurry to go anywhere fast.

A grizzled Shea Whigham stars as an unnamed man whose desperate actions set off a chain of events in a small town with devastating consequences.

Picked up by alcoholic priest David Martin in an act of kindness, it seems the man has been saved. 

But in a moment of desperation at a quarry, the priest is killed, and seeing a chance to start a new life, the man takes it and drives to his new parish town of Bevel in west Texas. 

Hot on the heels of his arrival, everything "David Martin" owns is stolen, and the faux priest is forced to seek help from the local police, headed up by Michael Shannon's gravel-voiced Chief Moore. As the net tightens around the thieves, so too does it tighten around "David Martin"'s neck...

There's a muted feel to The Quarry, a film that's so sparse, it almost feels like it goes nowhere at all. Its glacial pace may be a little too much of nothing for some, and while there are elements of New Zealand International Film Festival's Corpus Christi in terms of storyline, The Quarry is a more pensive affair.

Central to proceedings is Whigham and Shannon's relationship, which burns with an intensity that's hard to shake and a feeling of more going on under the surface than is immediately obvious.

Shannon delivers another of his variations of a hard-ass man shaken by life but getting on with it, and it's clear he and Whigham have a chemistry outside of the screen that shakes some of the dust out of the dour and at times, bleak proceedings.

But it's Whigham to whom the film belongs.

There's a subtlety to his performance that benefits the slow-burning plot, even if there's a distinct feeling that some elements of the film aren't quite there.

Moreno is wasted as Celia, the "priest"'s lodger, and there's a nagging impression that more could have been made of her character and her impact on proceedings, rather than being as sidelined as she is.

Ultimately, The Quarry may refer to a physical place or those caught in the cat and mouse game; however, there's a little too much left unsaid throughout the film to fully draw people in. But surrender to the rhythms of The Quarry and its claustrophobic sparseness may yield unexpected rewards.