For western fans who have seen both the maddingly nebulous Gus Van Sant 2002 flick GERRY featuring Casey Affleck & Matt Damon (6.2 of 10 IMDb rating) and the 97th most popular movie of all-time, Ethan & Joel Coen's NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, director\writer\editor Brett A. Hart's BONE DRY will elicit many echoes of recognition. Hart intentionally leaves viewers at sea in an effort to have them misplace their empathy with protagonist\desert torture victim "Eddie" during most of the film. For those not literate enough to sense which way the wind eventually will blow from the opening quotes of Lucretius and Shakespeare's Richard III, the ease with which "Eddie" starts dispatching random drug dealers in BONE DRY's second half is a dead giveaway of the flip-flopping sympathies due before the final credits roll. While "Eddie's" antagonist "Jimmy" suffers more from not being fleshed out in the movie, he does combine NO COUNTRY's Sheriff Ed Tom Bell's practical curmudgeonness with pneumatic bolt toting contract killer Anton Chigurh's aura of inexorable doom. Being called upon to stand in for both Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem in the same movie certainly is a step up in the world from that PUMPKINHEAD crap for Lance Henriksen ("Jimmy").
P.S.--Hopefully Brett A. Hart does NOT have to live down being a blood descendant of the infamous sponging, deadbeat-dad, poser, Bret Harte (1836-1902), author of "The Luck of Roarin' Camp" and other "western" stories. (Director Hart's website makes no connection between himself and his literary or wrestler namesakes, but if he later wishes to pick one, he'd be well-advised to take the grappler.) As America's greatest penman Mark Twain observed, the 19th Century writer Harte (born Francis Brett Hart in Albany, NY) started his career making up "news" from the west for East Coast publications, and--in 20th Century terms--played Zane Grey to Twain's Louie L'Amour. This false Harte was a flash-in-the-pan with just one year of real success, soon leaving all of his acquaintances with his unpaid debts, abandoning his wife and kids with no support, and absconding to die in Europe.
P.S.--Hopefully Brett A. Hart does NOT have to live down being a blood descendant of the infamous sponging, deadbeat-dad, poser, Bret Harte (1836-1902), author of "The Luck of Roarin' Camp" and other "western" stories. (Director Hart's website makes no connection between himself and his literary or wrestler namesakes, but if he later wishes to pick one, he'd be well-advised to take the grappler.) As America's greatest penman Mark Twain observed, the 19th Century writer Harte (born Francis Brett Hart in Albany, NY) started his career making up "news" from the west for East Coast publications, and--in 20th Century terms--played Zane Grey to Twain's Louie L'Amour. This false Harte was a flash-in-the-pan with just one year of real success, soon leaving all of his acquaintances with his unpaid debts, abandoning his wife and kids with no support, and absconding to die in Europe.