Ostensible, possible murder mystery. Two souvenir hunters on a long-deserted rifle range in a remote corner of a nonessential military base discover, among the cacti and yucca, a single set of human remains. Initial indications -- the Mason's ring that got the attention of the metal detector, a rusted tin star -- point toward the infamous corrupt sheriff who went missing forty years back. And initial suspicions point toward the late, legendary sheriff who succeeded him. The current sheriff happens to be the legend's son, and if for no other reason than the heaviness of the shadow under which he toils -- "Sheriff Deeds is dead, honey. You're just Sheriff Junior" -- he would not personally be all that unhappy at posthumously proving the old man a murderer. (It's nice to see Chris Cooper in a lead role, and looking, under the added exposure, even more worried, burdened, squashed than usual.) Director, writer, and editor John Sayles, and lodestar (though not lone star) of the American independent cinema, makes use of this situation to survey a Texas border town geographically and architecturally, in crisp, clean photography. And, clearly more important to him, to dispense civics lessons and history lessons, liberal editorials and human-interest vignettes. He does not use the situation, at the same time, to develop anything resembling suspense, excitement, pace, or narrative nicety. The outcome is broad in scope and broad in mind (in scope, as broad as anything of his except maybe City of Hope; in mind, as broad as absolutely everything of his), but offsettingly flat in tone and slack in tension. Elizabeth Peña, Joe Morton, Kris Kristofferson, Frances McDormand. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd
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