- Starring: Jason Isaacs, Jeffrey Wright, Joe Anderson, Kelly Reilly, Melissa Leo, Ophelia Lovibond, Sam Rockwell, Ted Levine, William H. Macy
- Summary: The tragic death of a beautiful young girl starts a tense and atmospheric game of cat and mouse between hunter John Moon and the hardened backwater criminals out for his blood.
- Director: David M. Rosenthal
- Genre(s): Drama, Thriller, Crime
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 16
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Mixed: 8 out of 16
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Negative: 2 out of 16
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83The suspense comes and goes, but A Single Shot always maintains a firm grip on its sad, deteriorating environment.
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80David M. Rosenthal's sturdy, nasty rural noir, based on Matthew F. Jones's novel, is so sharp and rusted through that, after taking it in, you'll likely need a tetanus shot.
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70A Single Shot never rises to the level of a great film like “Winter’s Bone,” which digs much deeper in its depiction of life in the hills among the desperate poor. But thanks largely to Rockwell, it’s not bad, either.
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Sep 20, 201355By the end, Macy's presence is just one part of what makes A Single Shot recall the Coen brothers' "Fargo." That film's now-famous wood-chipper scene can seem strangely tame a decade and a half on, but it still has a lesson to teach: When you show violence in a story that's not really about violence, there'd better be more of a point than just making us squirm.
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50In lieu of suspense, Rosenthal relies on a mood of free-floating anxiety, enhanced by West Virginia (actually British Columbia) landscapes where the sun never shines. As one-note as the title suggests, A Single Shot misfires.
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40Mr. Rosenthal puts the story’s parts into play well enough, but once everyone and everything is in position that’s more or less where they stay as this slow story downshifts to a crawl.
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25What passes for a plot has been done a thousand times before — in much better films than A Single Shot.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 0 out of 1
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Mixed: 1 out of 1
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Negative: 0 out of 1
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Sep 20, 20135
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