How sad is this?

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This film tells the story of the residents in a small town, and what they are up to on a certain Saturday afternoon. The day is eventful, and people are all geared up for a big Saturday night.The story revolves mainly about the sheriff, a criminal, an insecure young man and a aspiring country singer. Their life story is told engagingly, and I feel very much for the poor young man who has an overbearing mother. I applaud his courage to do what he does at the end of the film. It is quite surprising to me that a small independent film can have both Chris Pine and Octavia Spencer in it, I don't quite know how the producers get such great talent to star in an independent film like this. Overall, the film is a little plain to me, but I say plain not in a bad way, as the film seems a reasonable portrayal about life in a sleepy small town.

Rhett Ryan (Chris Pine) is a car mechanic with Nashville dreams. He is about to move there with his girlfriend (Bre Blair). Only she has second thoughts. She is still tie to police officer Carson (Shawn Christian), the father to her daughter. Meanwhile there are all kinds of characters in this small town of Prospect.This is a slow moving indie for the first half. There are a few too many characters in their mundane lives. It's a boring slog through a lot of nothing scenes. The direction isn't the most exciting. It does improve with the bank robbery.Director/writer Ryan Craig needs to move the plot along quicker. And for a movie about a country singing mechanic, he waited until the end to let Chris Pine sing. He's actually not that bad (unless he was dubbed). I don't understand why he doesn't sing early in the movie. Anything would improve the first half.

Let me say up front that I think it's incredibly difficult and rare for a first time film director to have the discipline to effectively direct his own script. Granted Ryan Craig's written and directed a couple of TV movies, but things change a lot when you're doing a real grownup film. The chance to see your every word and decision on the big screen makes it agonizing to cut a single scene... hey! You wrote that! That said, there are some excellent performances from a cast loaded with accomplished actors, not least Shawn Christian who's best known for his soap opera career and Chris Pine who gets to indulge his hunky looks while playing some seriously downer scenes. I don't think John Hawke (Winter's Bone and The Sessions) is capable of a bad performance and this one gives him plenty of room.I gave it a 5 because of the writer-director's failure to make the fullest use of this wealth of talent, but since the film is playing on HBO and it's not a halfbad way to spend an evening.

From reading the reviews, I was expecting the standard, formulaic aspiring singer/songwriter story, loaded with mediocre songs and bad acting. As it turned out, there weren't any songs at all... well, not until the final scene. The acting was very good, IMO, and I especially liked John Hawkes (Donnie) portraying the good ol boy, ex-con troublemaker who really only wants to spend some quality time with his young child, now in the care of his ex and her lover. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, how the characters were related to one another, and their intertwined struggles for existence. No one has it easy in this small town. The mood is rather depressing and melancholy, which for me, is realistic and refreshing. It's a slice of life... nothing over the top or melodramatic. Simple people living routine and somewhat hopeless lives. There are several other story lines apart from Rhett's dilemma about moving to Nashville, and for me, this is what made this movie enjoyable. The signs inside the gas station/repair shop added a nice, down-home feel, as did the down-on-her-luck bar lady willing to turn a trick for 20 bucks.