Climbing Higher Pictures

The following review was written in conjunction with the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival and reflects the cut of the film which screened for Press.

Meskada Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: A-

After the agony that was William Vincent, it was clear that almost anything would have managed to salvage my faith in independent cinema. Luckily for me, the next screening I had did a lot more than that. Meskada is a film about a police detective played by Nick Stahl who is investigating a burglary/homicide. The killers have a connection to a small one horse town, and as clues unfold about the nature of the night’s tragic events, the investigation brings the detective back into the lifestyle he had long since managed to abandon. It plays with themes of community, poverty, corporatism, oppression, and justice all while packaging itself into a police procedural where everything has a deeper, more resonate connection.

The great thing about the film is how totally real it is. You believe in the town and the people who live there. You believe in the detectives who are investigating the case, in the men who committed the crime. Everyone is so well grounded and fleshed out that it becomes less about watching a movie than about witnessing the events that led to the blurb on your local news channel. The story hits close to home for a variety of reasons, and I can’t think of a recent film that has felt more genuine to its subject matter.

The actors themselves all pull their weight nicely. Stahl has the most to do, seeing as he is both a townie and the cop in charge of the case. Supporting players in the town steal a lot of the film, including Norman Reedus in his first role since Boondock Saints II. Rachel Nichols looks lovely as always in the part of Stahl’s partner. She doesn’t have a ton to do, but she maintains the by-the-book cop feeling even in the rural terrain.

The story unfolds much in the way you’d expect. The murder leads to the detectives getting pulled in, and once you’re on the beat you have a level of expectation. You’ve seen films like this, you think you know where the story is headed, and you allow a certain amount of complacency to creep into your perception. It’s at this point that you get sucker punched and thrown for a loop, as dead ends, red herrings, and other interesting complications arise. The pace doesn’t let up, and the whole film manages to keep you engaged, if not altogether involved in the action on screen. The only thing that causes the tension to sag is the fact that we know who the killers are. Their identities aren’t a secret to the audience, and because of this, we are always more than a step ahead of the cops. It places us in an observatory position, and causes the film to entertain through showing us a variety of interactions, rather than having a slew of major plot reveals.

I’m happy to say that the film works in all the ways you’d hope it would, and is a really wonderful demonstration of a genre movie done right. Could there have been more twists and turns, or a more tension based plotline? Sure. But then it would have lost sight of the themes that make it unique. This is the second feature film by Josh Sternfeld, whose first project, Winter Solstice was sold at the Tribeca Film Festival. If Meskada is any indication, we’ll be seeing a lot more of him in the near future.