A low-budget gem from Florida

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, July 27, 2006

Two films open this weekend that conjure up oodles of humid Florida atmosphere. Their similarities end there: One is the big-scaled “Miami Vice,” the other a poor relation called “Coastlines.”

“Coastlines” was made on a tiny budget, completed in 2002, and held up in release until now. It’s technically raw, and a bit uneven in its storytelling. Yet it’s a beauty.

This film is written and directed by Victor Nunez, who makes his home and his films in Florida. “Coastlines” completes a loose trilogy based in the panhandle; the previous films were “Ruby in Paradise,” which launched Ashley Judd to prominence, and “Ulee’s Gold,” a gentle comeback for Peter Fonda.

If you liked those lovely, understated pictures, and if you think the way palm fronds brushing against a window at night might be more important than a strong story, “Coastlines” could be for you. In outline, it’s rather stale: An ex-con named Sonny (Timothy Olyphant, from “Deadwood”) returns to his hometown after getting out of jail.

Boyhood friend Dave (Josh Brolin) is a policeman. He’s married to Ann (Sarah Wynter), who probably had something or other with Sonny in the past. These three are still fast friends, even after Dave issues Sonny a warning about falling back into old habits.

Sonny, alas, is still mixed up with bad people (local gangsters William Forsythe and Josh Lucas), and his heart is still mixed up with Ann.

The kind of fraught affection-tension that can exist between old friends is well drawn between Sonny and Dave. In some ways Ann seems like the center of the movie – a wife and mother who can’t let go of the past (she needs to drive her sports car into the flat tropical landscape once in a while). Thus she’s susceptible to Sonny’s adolescent charm.

Nunez is extremely laid-back as a storyteller, and he barely bothers to build the pieces of the crime plotline. But if you take the movie as essentially a character study, it rings true. There’s a conversation between Dave and Ann over a kitchen table that reaches a brutal level of honesty.

The movie’s even better at capturing a sense of place. Wherever the land reaches a coast, old dreams and worn-out people come to rest, and Nunez really knows these ratty auto shops and crumbling docks. You can almost feel the warm breeze coming off this film – perhaps it’s more like “Miami Vice” than it seems.

Josh Brolin, Timothy Olyphant and Sarah Wynter in “Coastlines.”