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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   "Shotgun Stories" ½ Violent: A family feud in Arkansas results in a cycle of violence, grimly enacted in this beautifully shot, somewhat pre-ordained film. Michael Shannon is compelling in a mostly little-known cast. Rated: PG-13 rating for violence, language Now showing: Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle; 206-329-2629   CONTACT THE HERALD Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, May 9, 2008 'Shotgun Stories': Grim tale rebukes eye-for-eye violence By Robert Horton Herald Movie Critic The title of "Shotgun Stories" refers to the urban (or in this case, rural) legends that have sprung up concerning the scars on the back of Son Hayes (Michael Shannon), who declines to speak about the exact nature of his long-ago wound. This is a fitting title, because the movie is all about the ways people have forgotten the root cause of their issues with each other. At the heart of the story is a feud -- call it a modern Hatfield-McCoy showdown -- but nobody really knows why it's happening. Son lives in small-town Arkansas, with his younger brothers Kid (Barlow Jacobs) and Boy (Douglas Ligon) nearby. Their blank names tell you something about the quality of parenting they received. Their father dies, and the brothers cause a spectacle at his funeral, by denouncing him as an abusive drunkard. Problem is, after he abandoned his first family, the father remarried and had four more sons. They vow vengeance after the funeral. That begins a cycle of violence that is both mindless and ancient. But this isn't "Walking Tall," and there is nothing justified or exciting about the stupid exchange of hostilities in this movie. Director Jeff Nichols, a protégé of producer David Gordon Green (whose most recent film is "Snow Angels"), presents this sorry spectacle with an almost helpless air of regret. The movie's pretty grim, leavened only by the presence of a goofball-sidekick character named Shampoo (G. Alan Wilkins). It's shot in the manner of Terrence Malick's "Badlands," or some other terse 1970s picture. The beautiful landscapes (even the rundown corners of Middle America look picturesque) stand in contrast to the messed-up lives of the people living there. Nichols gets good work out of Michael Shannon, the disturbing star of "Bug," and the other little-known actors. As well-done as much of the movie is, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen most of this before, and better, in other films. This is an intelligent rebuke to the violence of an-eye-for-an-eye culture, but there's something not quite organic about how it all works out. When an outcome is pre-ordained, a movie can feel a little airless, and "Shotgun Stories" doesn't quite breathe.

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