In 1987 43000 woodland acres in central Texas were burned by
wildfires. Approximately 1600 homes were destroyed and four lives were lost.
The cause of the fires remains unknown.[1]
Set a year after the fires writer and director David Gordon Green (Joe 2013)
based this ‘buddy movie’ on an Icelandic comedy film by Hafsteinn Gunner
Sigurdsson called Either Way (2011).
Two men are repainting the lines that ran down the middle of roads that meander
there way through the area of the disaster. The older of the two is Alvin (Paul
Rudd) who has been using this isolated work place to escape from the realities
of life. That is until his girlfriend’s brother Lance (Emile Hursch) comes to
work with him. Unlike Alvin, Lance is more at home in the city than in the
countryside.
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| The two men start to bond. |
The two men form a tenuous relationship at first, with Lance
going off at the weekend to ‘party’ leaving Alvin to daydream about his imagined
life with his work mates sister Madison. Alvin also meets a strange old lady
that’s searching in the burned ashes of her home to find her pilots
licence! When a slightly unhinged truck
driver leaves alcohol with the two roadmen they start to bond - helped by a
drunken binge!
 |
| The eerie Bastrop landscape. |
Effectively a two hander that’s both human and personnel and
although sedately paced it’s a captivating wee film that never looses your
interest. Our two leads handle the subtle humour extremely competently and the
DOP Tom Orr makes a great deal of the burnt out landscape’s giving an eerie
feel to the movie. Shot on location in
Bastrop County Texas where in September 2011 the most destructive wildfire in
Texas history took place!
