Movie Review: ‘WHITEWASH’

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Thomas Haden Church plays Bruce Landry. A man we know little about before he ends up killing someone in an accident. It doesn’t help that he attempts to cover it all up and ends up the next morning from his drunken joyride in the middle of the woods with his Bobcat stuck. The rest of the film is about how Bruce, a man with a past of alcoholism, as he contemplates on how to handle the situation. This could have easily turned into a Coen Brothers murder-noir but by knowing nothing about Landry director Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais decides to use flashbacks and how Landry attempts to dig himself out of a sticky predicament.

Sometimes it’s great to just watch a character film and Whitewash is no exception. We should know by now that Thomas Haden Church has the chops to carry a film. he was hilarious in the film Sideways (I know, going outside of the genre titles) and I have always liked the guy since Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight (see, I brought it back around). He has the type of charisma that makes him unique enough not to be an every man but identifiable enough to relate to him. This is also very crucial for a film like Whitewash where there is a small cast. Without giving too much away, for the majority of the film, the audience is with Bruce as he thinks and acts out how he would respond to police questioning about the man he just killed and their relationship, which we are uncovering as the film moves along. Church is on his A-Game with this film. There are enough funny and awkward situations that make something that could be pretty dark into something that is a bit light-hearted and a cautionary tale of who you might become friends with.

Director Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais won the Tribeca 2013 award for Best New Narrative Director and it is easy to see why. This an expertly directed film that lies its focus on Church and the environment.  There are shots in here that will stick in your head. For example, early on in the film (around the 7 minute mark) there is a static shot that shows Bruce’s Bobcat come out of the woods onto a dark road. As the shot is still we watch the light from the Bobcat get smaller and smaller until it is a dark frame and does a smash cut into a frantic edit of images of Bruce plowing through the forest. Sound design is crisp on this one, I actually had to open my windows to make sure that we got past Winter.

Whitewash is recommended for those that like solitary character studies. It is one of Church’s best roles in the past few years and since The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is out today and might remind you of Church’s portrayal of Sandman in Spider-Man 3, well…Whitewash will make you almost forget that he was in that horrible movie.

Whitewash is currently available from Oscilloscope Laboratories on all premium digital platforms, including iTunes, Amazon, and XBOX Live.