3 out of 5

Directed by: Henry Dunham

This was interesting, though not exactly compelling.  I generally dig locked-room trials of this nature – sequester some folks, drop a Whodunnit in their laps, and let them suss and bicker it out – but the tension obviously requires a balance to be effective, not to mention having actors and a script to pull it off.  And while I think Henry Dunham’s The Standoff at Sparrow Creek has all of that, I’m not sure I ever quite bought in to the tension itself.  Like everyone was really keen on locking themselves in in the first place; there were key moments where the sensibility of “we have to settle this now” just didn’t really register, and the threat of members of this group – a militia group, fearing a recent police assault will be pinned on them – turning on each other felt oddly hollow.

Some of this is structural I think.  Dunham smartly keeps things sparse, with conversations settling into a realistic patter as ex-cop Gannon (James Badge Dale) interrogates the likely suspects in the group when it’s discovered that some of their key equipment – known to be involved in the slaughter of several cops – has gone missing, and also appreciably never devolves matters into swear-laden shouting matches.  The alternately brightly lit and backlit locations in which these interviews take place are stunningly stark, light and dark paintings of tension themselves, but the camera…  Dunham isn’t flashy, doing standard over-the-shoulders or just sitting back from an observation point, but most scenes are capped with movements to a particular point of view, or letting the camera drift to an odd perspective, and it feels very unmotivated.  I sense there was an attempt to represent mood with these adjustments, but that mood seemed forced, or rather, assumed.  We also don’t do a full circuit of finger pointing.  The suspects are narrowed down to three at the outset, and it’s not clear why everyone doesn’t get the third degree.  And also why Gannon is given fairly why range to get the confessions.  Yes, ex-cop, but shouldn’t he be just as suspect…?

Fair enough, a lot of these types of flaws are apparent in thrillers of this nature, and Sparrow Creek still comes out ahead by playing it lower key, and giving the main speaking roles to actors – Dale, Chris Mulkey, Happy Anderson – who definitely carry their screentime.  So it’s interesting, for sure, and kept to a tight ninety minutes.  It’s lack of weight might’ve been a bigger issue had Dunham pushed for something grander, but he keeps his conclusions and intentions fairly open-ended; conventions in the flick might feel kind of forced, but I like that, as a viewer, I was allowed to make up my own mind about how I felt about them.