PLOT: A mysterious fugitive (Shea Whigham) kills a preacher in a fit of rage. He winds up posing as the man, who’d recently been assigned to be a Pastor at a remote church in a Texas border town. While there, he finds himself torn between his new vocation and his deadly secret, with the local police chief (Michael Shannon) and two Mexican teens (Bobby Soto and Alvaro Martinez) being the only ones who think this new preacher may not be who he says he is.
REVIEW: THE QUARRY is a throwback film for frequent co-stars Shea Whigham and Michael Shannon. Both have become A-list character actors, but this is more along the lines of the indies they were making a decade or so ago, offering Whigham a rare starring role, while Shannon gets a meaty, not immediately likable supporting part as a conflicted, imperfect lawman. In some ways, it feels like Jeff Nichols circa SHOTGUN STORIES, although given a poetic streak that perhaps is more like early David Gordon Green.
It’s a solid outing for writer-director Scott Teems, who cut his teeth on the series “Rectify”, so he knows a thing or two about haunted protagonists (notably – he’s also writing the upcoming HALLOWEEN KILLS). It’s a slow-burn noir that has a delicious premise and gives Whigham a heck of a part as the taciturn fugitive who kills a kindly (if naive) preacher without any hesitation but starts to feel gnawing pangs of guilt once he develops some empathy for his hopeless flock – most of whom are Mexican immigrants who don’t speak English but welcome him with open arms. Their respect threatens to redeem him, but this is also far from a parable, with Whigham’s character still, inevitably, motivated by a streak of self-interest that he’s never fully able to ignore. It all hinges around the discovery of the dead preacher’s body in the titular quarry, with two Mexican boys being suspected of the killing. Things are complicated by the fact that one of them knows damn well the preacher is the one responsible, while they also happen to be the nephews of the police chief’s mistress (Catalina Sandino Moreno).
Whigham is exceptional, with him able to convey the reawakening of his character’s conscience but also the gnawing sense that if he turns himself in, his life is essentially over. Teems is careful not to dip into melodrama or sentimentality, and anyone expecting a cathartic twist or two should be warned – this isn’t that movie. It’s far more cynical about human nature.
Michael Shannon has a smaller role than Whigham, but it’s not hard to see what drew him to the part as he’s a well-rounded, complicated character. His chief of police is sympathetic but also shown to be prone to bouts of self-pity and racism. He’s got the town’s most beautiful woman as a lover, while he gets to be the place’s defacto king, but he’s trapped by the knowledge that his town is, in effect, a desolate, lonely place and one he’s doomed to never escape. It has some real pathos, while, like Whigham, Shannon never forces any warmth on the character. You feel, at times, like Teems is setting him up to be a hero, but any time he seems on the cusp of being noble, a scene is thrown in to show that despite everything, he’s lazy and complacent.
While a great acting showcase, Teems’s distinctly non-traditional approach does make THE QUARRY more of an acquired taste. It would be easy to imagine a more mainstream, or even religious version of this being made, but that’s not anyone’s aim here. It’s quiet and slow, although it's gorgeously shot by DP Michael Alden Lloyd and evocatively scored by prolific indie composer Heather McIntosh (THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE). It’s one of the better films put out by Lionsgate’s “Grindstone” label and worth checking out if you’re a fan of slow-burn drama or the cast