Just what I expected

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

***Some Minor Spoilers*** Shotgun Stories takes a while to bust out the shotguns. I was feeling a little itchy waiting. I'll save you the trouble of wondering: it was worth it.This tragic indie-drama focuses on a blood-feud which spirals toward the clash of two sets of half-brothers. Son, played by the underrated Michael Shannon, and his younger brothers, Boy and Kid, were abandoned by their drunken father early in life. After the separation, their father went on to sober up, find Jesus, and raise a Mulligan-family of four brothers born of his second wife. His new family (the Hayes), operate a successful farm, which the reformed father built once he crawled out from the bottle and into Jesus's hands.Son, Boy, and Kid are impoverished - Boy lives in his van, Kid in a tent outside Son's trailer - so it's no surprise that they hate the Hayes and the life their father built for them. Then one night their vengeful mother shows up at Son's house to inform the three brothers that their father is dead.Hitherto we've only seen Son as a quiet, relatively pacifist protagonist. The turning point is when he interrupts the funeral with his brothers in tow, demanding to speak.With all the Hayes family in attendance, he basically calls their father a piece of crap. He caps it off by spitting on the old man's casket.That's when I busted out the popcorn.The second wife intercedes to prevent an outright brawl, and Son and his brothers depart without any violence, but there's not a doubt in my mind that this is only the beginning.  The Hayes brothers, befuddled by grief for the good man they knew as their father, are out for blood, and Son, Boy, and Kid are happily willing to unleash their lifetime of rancor for the man they knew as a violent drunk.Writer-director Jeff Nichol's impressive debut is unmistakably indie in tone and theme. There's a lot of 'negative space' here: a character stares off into the distance, and the audience must decipher a tick of the eyebrow or quirk of the lips. Son's character carries the majority of the weight there: a lesser actor might have sunk the project, but Michael Shannon packs marvelous punch with his limited dialogue, and he manages the 'simple man' affect without seeming dumb. Au contraire. His long pauses and nuanced expression deliver the exact opposite: we see an intelligent man who's slow to speak his mind (and is even something of a doormat when it comes to confrontation) but - once the tension and violence amp up - doesn't hesitate to defend himself and his family.Plot-wise, the violence is brutal and gut-wrenching, but it isn't the focus. The worst of it all occurs off-screen, and the gamble pays off. Shotgun Stories' global themes specifically deglorify violence.Most of us haven't incited a familial feud by spitting on our deadbeat dad's casket, but the themes of senseless division and reckless hate are more prescient than ever. Whether it's Shiites and Sunnis or Republicans and Democrats, we're all too aware of the cultures of division, partisanship, and sectarianism. The viewer will undoubtedly connect to Shotgun Stories and its overarching theme. While you won't find any Juliet to Son's Romeo- besides perhaps his wife, who's just left him at the film's opening scene- there are definite parallels between the age-old Capulet-Montague dynamic. Considering the self-defeatism the film portrays as inherent to such a conflict, one might argue it reaches back to Shakespeare's own source material, the Greek tragedy. The deeper Son and his brothers delve into the conflict brewing with the Hayes clan, the more we come to understand that nothing good can possibly come of it.Besides Shannon, the acting is good but not noteworthy, excepting perhaps Son's wife (Nicole Canerday), the criminal but likable Shampoo (G. Alan Wilkins, an apparent nobody who I'd love to see more from), and Cleaman Hayes (Michael Abbot Jr.). Cleaman's character stands out especially as the single reasonable Hayes brother, and Abbot's acting delivers a convincing portrait of a brother trying to keep the peace but unwilling to let his brothers fight a war on their own.Aside from Cleaman, however, the Hayes closely resemble human-shaped turds. I spent a decent portion of the film hoping Son would go grab that promised shotgun and finish them already, even knowing the film wasn't headed that direction. If I had any major complaint with Shotgun Stories, it's that it didn't fully convince me that the majority of the Hayes didn't deserve to be wiped from the face of the earth, which is clearly not what the film aimed for. Aside from Cleaman, two of the brothers are all but villainized, and the final brother has the screen-presence of a wet noodle. Though Son is the unquestioned protagonist, Nichols wanted me to sympathize with the Hayes brothers as the other side of the same coin, which I simply couldn't do. Regardless of the fact that Son did spit on their daddy's casket, I couldn't see the Hayes as anything but instigators and 'the bad guys' until the end, which was too late a reversal for me to buy in. I'll give Nichols a pass, though, since he met, and sometimes surpassed, the mark he aimed for everywhere else.Overall I'm glad a TRUSTED friend recommend this; otherwise, I might have bailed early on an amazing film. While the themes and acting are powerful, the opening is slow, and I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It's a little more in-your-head than the average American viewer might want from even a drama. Regardless, I'd stand by it as a recommendation for anyone looking for a character-driven story heavy on themes of family loyalty and the hopelessness of hatred.

Written and Directed by Jeff Nichols, "Shotgun Stories" tells a tale of Son Hayes (Michael Shannon), who has raised his two younger brothers Boy (Douglas Ligon), and Kid (Barlow Jacobs). Their mother, for her own selfish reason left the boys when their father abandoned the whole family, to start a new life with another women in the same town. Now that the father has passed, Son decides to exchange some hateful words at his funeral, and their father's other sons don't take to kind to it. This starts the family feud of a lifetime. Michael Shannon has to be one of my favorite actors to grace us with his presence in film in this decade. He is one of the most pleasing actors to watch, his subtle way of showing us his pain, and anger rest all in his eye, and jaw movement. It works perfectly. Douglas Ligon and Barlow Jacobs were excellent as the two younger brothers. Ligon's character Boy, lives in his filthy van by choice, and Kid lives in a tent in Son's backyard. When Son's wife leaves him, he lets the two brothers move into his place. Ligon and Jacobs stood their ground next Shannon. Especially Ligon, who has some great heart-felt scenes.This is Jeff Nichols first film, and it could not have been better. Well maybe I could have seen the ending going a little further but that is nothing to really complain about. The writing was superb, and Nichols made the film flow very smoothly. I give Shotgun Stories a 9.5 out 10.P.S.Jeff Nichols next film is called "Take Shelter", and is also stars Michael Shannon. It's about a father who starts having visions of an apocalypse that is about to happen. It looks incredible. Look it up.

"Shotgun Stories" is a moody melodrama of Southern rural life smartly observed. Jeff Nichols shoots his first feature film, trusting the scenery, the faces of his actors creating the atmosphere while he relies on small town, everyday life circumstances for character building. "Shotgun Stories" is a tragedy that unfolds beautifully as an intimate family drama. It serves as a passionate cry to end senseless violence, as well as a stark reminder that we possess the power to determine our own destinies. Set against the backdrop of rural Arkansas, "Shotgun Stories" follows an escalating feud between two sets of half-brothers who differ in every way, except for one side of their parental heritage. We are first introduced to Son (Michael Shannon), Boy (Dougls Ligon), and Kid Hayes (Barlow Jacobs), born to a drunken father who didn't have the decency to give his offspring names, and rejected by a mother who was too bitter to care for them. The father decides to abandon his first family to find sobriety, God, and to begin a new life with another family. He fathers four more sons who were given the real names and the upbringing they deserved. The second Hayes family owns a cotton and soybean farm and is comfortably middle class. Son, in contrast, works at a fish hatchery and loses all his money trying to perfect a "system" he thinks can beat the local casino. Kid sleeps in a tent in Son's yard, and Boy lives in a van by the river. When their father dies the sets of brothers are brought together at his funeral, and their previously harbored hostilities erupt and further escalate.Nichols makes a point not to show us the actual violence on screen. He often cuts away at the critical moments of a confrontation, and it is Nichols' approach to film making that strips away any glamour associated with the violence while being consistent with his message.It should be noted that the pacing here is pretty slow – albeit realistically so. Thankfully the performances alone are sufficient to keep this counter-revenge tragedy on track. The performances are uniformly excellent with veteran character actor Michael Shannon as the film's emotional anchor. There is plenty to enjoy in "Shotgun Stories," just don't anticipate all the fireworks.

Shotgun Stories is a film that should be better than it is. The material provides any number of story lines to emerge that would be more convincing than what is actually shot. The movie does have one thing going for it: Michael Shannon. Too long has this great actor sat in the background of American film. Seen most recently in the William Friedkin adaptation of Tracy Letts' "Bug," Mr. Shannon has the ability to hide his intentions better than any other actor around. The only reason to keep watching this movie at all is because you're not exactly sure what he's up to. While watching this film, one can't help but notice that it looks an awful lot like a David Gordon Greene movie. That's a nice touch, except when the end credits finally...finally go up it shows that this much better filmmaker is a co-producer. Had Mr. Greene taken the helm of this "family tragedy" it's possible the end result would be a far better affair. One fine scene exits in the movie, and it centers around a monologue delivered believably by Mr. Shannon. The scene is early on in the film and occurs at a funeral, and the tension between the families and the setting alone prepare you for more well written, well acted scenes that involve the same amount of truth as this one. Unfortunately, those scenes never come. Jeff Nichols structures the film into an old fashioned Greek tragedy that pits brother against brother. The grudge between them comes from a deep seeded hatred for one another stemming from none other than their father. Family bonds and morality are tested, and the film does a decent job of showing rural American life. Nichols himself hails from Arkansas and one would think that his interpretation of this lifestyle is accurate. I won't argue that. The homes in which these people live seem believable enough, and the environment seems like a real place, but when anyone other than Shannon opens their mouth the film borders on parody, making us laugh at these men's schemes rather than making us understand them. It is a story in which these men are trapped by their environment and unreconciled hatred. The funeral scene in the beginning was supposed to solve this, but only fueled the fire. When the guns start blazing and the bodies start dropping, the movie falls into ordinary melodramatic garbage that we've been reading since the beginning of time. Michael Shannon deserves better, and perhaps in the upcoming "Revolutionary Road" he'll finally be recognized. "Shotgun Stories" should have done this, but instead leaves the actor desperately trying to carry everyone else on his back, which he does for a while. Someone better get him some icy hot and put him in a good film right away.