''The Slaughter Rule'' is a 2002
independent film directed by Alex Smith and Andrew J. Smith and starring
Ryan Gosling and
David Morse
David Bowditch Morse (born October 11, 1953) is an American actor, singer, television director, and writer. He first came to national attention as Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison in the medical drama series '' St. Elsewhere'' (1982–88). His film c ...
. The film, set in contemporary
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...
, explores the relationship between a small-town high school
football player (Gosling), and his troubled coach (Morse). The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002
Sundance Film Festival.
Plot
Roy Chutney is a high school senior in the fictional Montana town of Blue Springs. Roy does not have an especially close relationship with his mother Evangeline and has not seen his father in years. That does not prevent Roy from feeling emotionally devastated when he learns that his father has killed himself, and Roy's self-esteem takes a beating when he is cut from the
high school football
High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...
team shortly afterward. Roy whiles away his time by swilling beer with his best friend, Tracy Two Dogs, and falling into a romance with Skyla, a barmaid at a local tavern, but Roy's short time on the high school gridiron seems to have impressed Gideon Ferguson, a local character who coaches an unsanctioned high school
six-man football
Six-man football is a variant of gridiron football played with six players per team, instead of the standard 11 or 12. It is generally played by high schools in rural areas of the United States and Canada.
History
Six-man football was developed ...
team when he is not delivering newspapers or trying to score a gig singing country songs at nearby honky-tonks.
Gideon thinks that Roy has potential and asks him to join his team; encouraged by Gideon's belief in him, Roy agrees, and he persuades Tracy and his friend Russ to tag along. While playing hardscrabble six-man football helps restore Roy's self-confidence, he finds it does not answer his questions about his future or his relationship with Skyla. When Gideon's overwhelming interest in Roy begins to lend credence to town rumors that Gideon is gay, Roy starts to wonder just why he was asked to join the team.
Cast
*
Ryan Gosling as Roy Chutney
*
David Morse
David Bowditch Morse (born October 11, 1953) is an American actor, singer, television director, and writer. He first came to national attention as Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison in the medical drama series '' St. Elsewhere'' (1982–88). His film c ...
as Gideon Ferguson
*
Clea DuVall
Clea Helen D'Etienne DuVall (born September 25, 1977) is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. She is known for her appearances in the films ''The Faculty'' (1998), '' She's All That''; '' But I'm a Cheerleader''; ''Girl, Interrup ...
as Skyla Sisco
*
Kelly Lynch
Kelly Ann Lynch (born January 31, 1959) is an American actress and model. Her notable film roles include '' Cocktail'', '' Road House'', ''Drugstore Cowboy'', ''Curly Sue''. and TV show roles in ''The L Word'' (2004–2005, 2009), and '' Magic Cit ...
as Evangeline Chutney
*
David Cale
David Cale (born David Egleton) is an English-American playwright, actor, and songwriter, best known for his solo performance works.
Early life
Cale was born in England in 1958 or 1959 and grew up in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire. He faile ...
as Studebaker
*
Eddie Spears
Edward Spears (born November 29, 1982) is an American actor. He is a member of the Kul Wicasa Oyate Lakota (often called "Sioux") Lower Brulé Sioux Tribe of South Dakota.
Early life
Spears was born in Chamberlain, South Dakota on the Lower Br ...
as Tracy Two Dogs
*
Amy Adams
Amy Lou Adams (born August 20, 1974) is an American actress. Known for both her comedic and dramatic roles, she has been featured three times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actresses. She has received various accolades, incl ...
as Doreen
* Ken White as Russ Colfax
Production
Jay Farrar
Jay Farrar (born December 26, 1966) is an American songwriter and musician currently based in St. Louis. A member of two critically acclaimed music groups, Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, he began his solo music career in 2001. Beyond his estab ...
, founder of the alternative country bands
Uncle Tupelo
Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to atten ...
and
Son Volt
Son Volt is an American rock band formed in 1994 by Jay Farrar after the breakup of Uncle Tupelo. The band's current line-up consists of Farrar (vocals, guitar), Andrew DuPlantis (bass guitar), John Horton (guitar), Mark Patterson (drums), and Ma ...
, composed the film's musical score.
New songs were written and performed by
Vic Chesnutt
James Victor Chesnutt (November 12, 1964 – December 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia. His first album, ''Little'', was released in 1990. His commercial breakthrough came in 1996 with the release of '' Sweet ...
and
Freakwater
Freakwater is an American alternative country band from Louisville, Kentucky, with one co-founding member living in Chicago. Freakwater is known for the lead vocals of Janet Bean and Catherine Irwin, who mix harmony and melody in idiosyncratic diss ...
, and existing songs by
Ryan Adams
David Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, artist, and poet. He has released 23 albums, as well as three studio albums as a former member of alt-country band Whiskeytown.
In 2000, Adams lef ...
, Uncle Tupelo, and the
Pernice Brothers
Pernice Brothers are an American indie rock band. Formed by Joe Pernice in 1998 after the breakup of his old band, the Scud Mountain Boys, and including Joe's brother Bob Pernice, the band recorded their first album, ''Overcome by Happiness'', fo ...
were also included.
Filming for the movie largely took place in
Great Falls, Montana, and a series of small towns in the Great Falls vicinity.
The title of the film comes from the term "
slaughter rule." The unofficial rule provides for an athletic competition's premature conclusion if one team is ahead of the other by a certain number of points prior to game's end. The rule helps to avoid humiliating the losing team further.
Release
The film premiered in January 2002 during the
Sundance Film Festival. Later that year, the film entered the
South by Southwest Film Festival and the
AFI Film Festival
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Leade ...
. It went into limited release nationwide beginning January 2003.
Critical reception
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 74% based on 31 reviews, and an average rating of 5.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A bleak but original indie, ''The Slaughter Rule'' benefits from outstanding performances by Ryan Gosling and David Morse." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
While the performances by Morse and Gosling were generally received positively, some reviews of the film criticized the script. Reviewing the film for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'',
Stephen Holden praised the performances of Gosling and Morse, but opined that the film is "confused" and "doesn't have much dramatic momentum". In her review for the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'',
Manohla Dargis
Manohla June Dargis () is an American film critic. She is one of the chief film critics for ''The New York Times''. She is a five-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Career
Before being a film critic for ''The New York Times'', ...
praised the film's cinematography but wrote that although the film has the virtue of sincerity, the story is "over-explained".
Joe Leydon
Joseph Patrick Michael Leydon (born August 22, 1952) is an American film critic and historian. A critic and correspondent for ''Variety'' since 1990, he is the author of ''Joe Leydon's Guide to Essential Movies You Must See'' (Michael Wiese Prod ...
of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' claimed the script "plays like a first draft". However, Marjorie Baumgarten of''
The Austin Chronicle
''The Austin Chronicle'' is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demogr ...
'' thought that the "writing and directing team of twin brothers Alex and Andrew Smith have made an astonishingly good first feature". J. R. Jones, writing in ''
Chicago Reader'', described the film as "powerful" and especially praised David Morse's performance.
Accolades
The film received the
FIPRESCI Prize
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...
at the 2002
Stockholm Film Festival
The Stockholm International Film Festival ( sv, Stockholms filmfestival, italic=no) is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year since then during the second half of November.
The w ...
and the Milagro Award at the 2002
Santa Fe Film Festival The Santa Fe Film Festival is a non-profit organization which presents important world cinema that represents aesthetic, critical, and entertainment standards highlighting New Mexican film. The organization partners with educational groups, schools, ...
. The film was also nominated for the
John Cassavetes Award The Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award is presented to the creative team of a film budgeted at less than $500,000 by the Film Independent, a non-profit organization dedicated to independent film and independent filmmakers. It is named after ac ...
at the 2003
Film Independent Spirit Awards and the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002
Sundance Film Festival.
References
External links
Official site*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slaughter Rule, The
2002 films
2002 independent films
American LGBT-related films
Films set in Montana
Films shot in Montana
High school football films
LGBT-related drama films
2002 drama films
2002 LGBT-related films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films