Pretty Good

Excellent adaptation.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

If the characters of "Hollow in the Land" had been slightly more bizarre and if the film had been graced with an eerie soundtrack, this might have been an episode of "Twin Peaks."The action takes place in a small, picturesque town in Western Canada. But the residents of Castlegar are too busy with custody battles, crime, drugs, and covering up their dirty laundry to take note of the beautiful landscape.The narrative focuses on the character of Ally Miller, who is La Femme Nikita transplanted to the Pacific Northwest. Ally turns into a kinetic private eye as she attempts to clear the name of her young brother, who has been placed in her custody after the incarceration of their father, Keith Miller, who was convicted of vehicular manslaughter.The young lad that was killed by the drunken Mr. Miller was Eli Balkoff, the son of the two town local scions, Helen and Jim Balkoff, who run the Balkoff paper mill where Ally works. Mr. and Mrs. Balkoff have recently dedicated their efforts to building a Center for Misguided Youth in their community, of which there are plenty of examples of juvenile delinquency.Amid the degeneracy of Castlegar, Ally Miller steps up to the plate to track down the culprits who have framed her little bro, Brandon Miller. Along the way, Ally learns that nearly all of the residents are guarding personal secrets. Two of the most intriguing characters are a pair of elderly women who have for years been growing pot, unbeknownst to the member of the community. Those women may hold the key to collective past of the town that will unlock the secrets to the great antipathy felt towards the Miller family.The irony of the townspeople is that everyone seems to know everyone else and makes it their personal business to be nosy. And yet, in the end, they really do not know each other's deepest secrets. One of the colorful placenames is that of Snob Hill, where Ally is led to another one of her clues. In this sleepy little trailer park community of Castlegar, it turns out that there really are some social snobs, who may help Ally to undercover the tragic underbelly of her dysfunctional world.

Yet another in the long line of disappointing thrillers. No real story , no thrills, not even moderately interesting. There isnt really much more to add other than dont waste and hour and a half of your precious time on this turd of a movie like I did!Siebert put it well - It is a butt stain on a pair of dirty old underpants of a movie!

I thought this was an above average film made more interesting by the capable acting of Dianna Argon as the lead character, Alison Miller. Throughout the story, Alison has to deal with a lot of disrespect from others in this blue collar environment largely due to the relationship between her father's crime and the local community, but also because of her younger brother's unruliness and general bias from Alison's being a lesbian. This all conspires to make her struggle to find her brother and hopefully prove his innocence more challenging and thereby interesting.As the story develops, you learn there is a fair amount of interplay between the various people in the background and it can be a little confusing if you're not paying attention to the various character's names. If you do loose track as I did, it still manages to come together in the end. All said, in my view, a worthwhile watch.

I didn't like this film. The opening scene was interesting but What follows is and endless series of elongated scenes that move the story along very slowly and very uneventfully. I was solidly bored 30 minutes in and lost anything but very superficial interest in most of what was happening for another half hour which is when the pace crept up slightly.The synopsis is fairly accurate, and nothing executed in the screenplay makes it any more interesting than detailed in this two sentence outline. It's quite a dark and creepy affair, often with low lit scenery and an Erie soundtrack which the film relies on heavily to establish mood and convey tension. It's fairly bland, and even with twists in the plot around 'who did what and why', there are few undulations. Suspense is limited as is the build up of intrigue as the plot unfolds. Even though I didn't like it, I don't necessarily think it's a bad film, more that it lacks some crucial elements to make it interesting. As it is it's inadequate, but it does have some promise, or at least, it does show signs that whoever made it has. I don't like to be unfairly unkind when writing these reviews because I'm only too aware that no one deliberately makes a bad film or one with pitfalls. Often they are due to factors I couldn't possibly fathom, but here possibly a little inexperience could be the culprit, but that's just a guess. Some aspects of this film are very good but the pacing is too slow, particularly in the fist half where scenes are also lacking in interesting content. Still some credit is due as its not a half bad job.I don't recommend it because I don't think it has enough to offer as a suspense thriller, but you could still do worse than watch it in idle time.